"Parents Debate Round III"
Parents Debate the Budget!
Good morning all,
Please bear with me one last time concerning the budget and its priorities :)
I have attached a corrected handout. The one I gave the board had an extra item (it did not change the totals). I have also attached a bit more of a review of district powerpoints (reasoning), another format to try to explain the restricted reserve (4390) and an unrestricted major funds table. I keep hoping to find a way to shed light on less than transparent process.
The last attachment compares this year and next to 2005 in the unrestricted funds. Management chooses to not include considerable unrestricted funds in their budget proposal which makes comparisons difficult. (Other districts do not do this.) Since the 2005-06 unrestricted income is close to the 2010-11 unrestricted I found it noteworthy that the funds for staff (salaries and benefits) are about 6 M less in 2010-11.
I have dealt with five budget directors during my involvement with public education. I found one of them to truly understand their district budget. The rest prudently conserved funds by limiting expenditures, underestimating income and delivering categorical resources to sites only as they arrived. At the end of the year, when things were quieter, they cleaned up the budget by moving funds to where they belonged.
In normal times most of the budget repeats from year to year and the categorical carryover provides a comfortable reserve that carries the cash flow until the end of the year when the accounts are settled. Everyone gets what they are use to and the status quo is maintained.
During a challenge the status quo is not maintained and unnecessary or unwise cuts are made. In my experience a simplified narrative is created to justify cuts to staff since that is the area that can most put a budget at risk when it is not understood.
The current district narrative that has been presented to the board is that we need to cut 22 M based on the use of ARRA money to balance the 2009-2010 budget. This money replaced a decrease in revenue limit funds. The fact that there were increases in other state revenue and local revenue is not mentioned (about 10 M). Nor is the fact that we still have not spent down the restricted reserves (23 M) that are held in 4390 highlighted.
For me the challenge is to get the board to consider a different narrative. We could project that state and local revenue will continue average amounts and we could use our categorical reserves to replaced Tier III funds.
The 15 M they are cutting in staff is not necessary for next year. Yes we need to go over the budget line by line, consider carefully our use of consultants and other nonclassroom expenditures and identify staff savings for 2011-12. But we do not need to slow the local recovery by adding more layoffs to the challenge.
Not to mention what we are doing to morale, again, in our learning communities.
Peace,
Leo