Focusing the Debate on Davis High School's Stadium Renovation

Back in December, the DJUSD school board made the decision to prioritize the modernization of the football stadium over that of Emerson Junior High. This has generated a lot of criticism for the school district from a number of different quarters. In general this criticism has been ill-founded and based on misconceptions of funding and other factors.

The purpose of this article is to clarify some of the issues. While there seems to be a good deal of criticism to go around, it should be criticism that is fact-based rather than based on misinformation.

I largely decided to do this article because the school board and district's perspective is, we had a full public discussion about this at least twice in open meetings. People can view the tapes of those meetings if they are confused.

That is of course not how it works. The district needs to do a better job of communicating with the public. People do not watch the meetings and they will not watch the tapes of the meeting. At least most people will not. They may not even read the newspaper on the issue. But that will not stop them from forming opinions and even expressing those opinions.

Likely then that means the issue of communication falls to entities such as the Vanguard which can breakdown complex issues and discuss them at length rather than being confined to 500 words, 800 words, even 1200 words.

For that reason I have decided to go ahead with this explanation, even though I'm not sure what decision I would have made had I been a board member in December or February. Criticisms as I said should be fact-based and then people can make up their own minds.

A letter appears February 20, 2009 in the Davis Enterprise from 24 teachers at Cesar Chavez Elementary School.

They wrote:

"Fourth, we oppose the plan to build a $10 million high school stadium while there are schools such as Emerson Junior High which, last year, was under consideration for closure due to dilapidated facilities. Additionally, the long-term effects of the stadium financing on the general fund are not clearly delineated, and a clear payment plan has not been developed."

For this we need to back up several steps. Last spring, the district was facing a $4.5 million deficit. To that into perspective, what we face now which is roughly $3.1 million is a two year deficit. The scale of that deficit dwarfed this one in a lot of ways. So one thing the district was looking at was they knew off the bat they could save over $600,000 by closing a school.

The next part of this was the condition of Emerson Junior High. The district knew that it needed upgrades and repairs. However, what they did not know at that time was whether those needed upgrades and repairs were safety violations. This all happened so quickly that the district was in danger of making decisions based on less than complete information. This is very important to understand, to a good degree, the condition of the facilities in Spring of 2008 was unknown and all discussions were speculation.

Based on this and the problems of logistics that arose, the district made the decision not to close Emerson Junior High at that time and evaluate the facilities at a later point.

In June 2008, the district completed its evaluation. The evaluations indicate that the district will need to spend between $10 and $15 million on upgrades to Emerson. However, what they were told was that this was not an imminent safety problem. Much of the needed upgrades and repairs were to get it up to date with current code requirements. According to the consultants at the December meeting, that can happen at any time. Basically those requirements only kick in if the school were to do a major construction project.

School board Tim Taylor made it a point to talk about this back in December. He acknowledged rumors of deteriorating conditions in the buildings at Emerson but again added that there rumors were not borne out by the actual surveys by architects.

So when the teachers say there were school such as Emerson that were under consideration for closure due to dilapidated facilities, that is both misleading and really out of date information. The correct statement would have been that the district was looking to cut costs last spring and the conditions of the buildings while not known at the time, were cited as a possible reason for closure of the school.

I have said before and I will say again, I do not believe that any board members or any administrator wants to close Emerson. That is based on personal discussions with just about all of them. Moreover, looking at the three year finances, I do not see a reason that the district would need to close Emerson. They may play with the configurations, but I believe with strong certainty that Emerson is in no danger at this point of closing.

I spent more space than anticipated addressing the Emerson rumor, but that was important to put to bed. At a future point, there will be an article that fully explains the financing of the football stadium at Davis High School.

At this point, here is what we know. The district believes it can get redevelopment money for a portion of this project. That redevelopment money can only be used for school facilities, not for teacher salaries or other instructional expenses.

Second, the district is planning on borrowing about $4 million against future revenues from the school district's community facilities districts. Again those funds can be used for school facilities only, not for teacher salaries.

See a pattern here. I am uncertain what the teachers meant when they stated: "the long-term effects of the stadium financing on the general fund are not clearly delineated." To my knowledge there will be no impact on the general fund since these monies do not and CANNOT come from general fund monies.

There has been considerable public outcry to this point about the project. In part the money issue is driving this. Part of that stems from the perception that the district is starving for money on one hand but taking up a $10 million project on the other. Again, that perception is wrong and misplaced because of the differential in types of funding.

The other issue with funding is that the district chose DHS over Emerson. They did this in December. There is no getting around the fact that they consciously prioritized DHS Stadium over Emerson. As I have already explained that does not mean they are closing Emerson. They simply believe that DHS Stadium is more pressing.

Again, I turn to a letter to the editor, this one from New Year's eve:

"Unquestionably, the appalling condition of the Blue Devils' stadium calls for its replacement. But in these desperate economic times is a costly restoration the best option? Especially when it likely means stalling desperately needed restoration at Emerson."

One of the questions is of course whether the restoration at Emerson is really desperately needed.

However, what is clear is that this is not merely an issue of the football program at the high school. This is not merely a matter of putting academics ahead of athletics or the appearance of vice-versa.

What this comes down to is a health and safety issue. The district was told by consultants and by students that there are safety issues not just with the football field, but with the track and with the stands. The district believes they face liability if this issue is not corrected and that liability would come out of the general fund whereas the repair comes from facilities money.

Again, that is the issue and the basis on which they made their decision. Are there alternatives to renovating the field? That is subject to debate and discussion. The district seemed to consider alternatives such as using Toomey Field, that seemed to be cost-prohibitive as well. Moreover it was impractical for everyday usage. Remember it is not merely the athletics programs that use the facilities but there is everyday usage.

Regardless, I think the question about alternatives is a fair discussion point. I also think the question about prioritization is a fair discussion point as long as understand the facts at this time suggest that Emerson is not going to be shutdown due to health and safety issues and the district's consultants believe that DHS Stadium faces more imminent and significant health and safety concerns than Emerson.

So to quickly summarize here: Emerson is not closing due to health and safety concerns. DHS Stadium will not use monies that could go to the classroom. The district believes the situation is more critical at DHS Staidum where Emerson mainly faces code upgrades that are not needed until construction occurs in the future.

---David M. Greenwald reporting

District Teachers Face Agonizing Choices

Under ordinary conditions, it seems unlikely that one would find a person more supportive of teachers than myself. I come from a family of teachers, I have myself been a teacher at times, and I believe in general teachers are unpaid for the importance of the job that they perform. Most people who suggest that teachers have an easy job and work only nine months, have either never taught themselves or never put a full effort into teaching. I am constantly amazed that teachers have the stamina to teach for eight hours and then go home to grade papers (no easy task) and prepare lesson plans.

I say this because after reading the full comments from the teachers from Casar Chavez Elementary School who also spoke up during public comment on Thursday evening at the school board meeting, I'm not sure I could really disagree with them more.

They write:

"First, we do not accept being placed in a position of choosing between salary reductions or seeing colleagues lose their jobs. It is the responsibility of the budget officer, the superintendent and the board to make informed, honest, transparent and responsible decisions.

At the all-district staff meeting held by Superintendent James Hammond on Feb. 11, we were given an ultimatum: Either we agree to a 4 percent permanent salary reduction, before a state budget is even approved, or there will be layoffs this year. We believe there are many more options than just salary reductions or layoffs, and it is incumbent upon the board to ensure that all options are thoroughly investigated."

I am unsure of where these individuals have been for the past few months, but if they read the newspaper at all during that time they might realize that across the state government employees (of which they are one) are having to make this painful decision across the board.

Yolo county employees have taken voluntary furloughs as the county faces a $22 million deficit for next year, in hopes that their colleagues will not be laid off. State employees represented by SEIU have reached agreement with the Governor to take what amounts to a 5% paycut, which is an improvement over the 10% paycut imposed by the Governor. These furloughs and paycuts are happening across a state that has recently had to cut $15 billion in spending due to the worst economic recession in 70 years.

The same thing is happening in the private sector--employees are being laid off in scores. There has been at least 500,000 and sometimes approaching 600,000 job losses per month. So the fact that the district is giving them a choice as to a paycut or pink slips, is hardly unique or surprising.

The teachers have a choice to make because right now the district is running deficits for the foreseeable future in the $3 million range.

The school board takes no joy in this. In fact, I have spoken recently to just about every member of the board and the reactions I have gotten borders on heartbreak for having to make these decisions. They did not run for school board to lay off teachers. But that is the choice that they now face.

I don't see many options other than salary reductions or layoffs and I have been over the budget as much as anyone this side of Bruce Colby. But I suspect if you have a counter-proposal the district would be glad to hear it.

"Second, the top four district administrators made an offer to reduce their salaries. This offer is contingent on the Davis Teachers Association's agreement to teacher salary reductions. It is wrong to pressure the teachers with a misleading public gesture. These administrators have recently negotiated with the board a raise for the 2009-10 school year as well as ongoing yearly increases. These increases add up to as much as 15 percent since October 2006."

I agree with the teachers that it was a mistake for there to have been any kind of raise for administrators. I think one of the worst decisions made was the decision to give Bruce Colby a 5% raise in December. It set a bad precedence and it looks bad to the public. Unlike last year, I think we had a pretty good idea as to what coming down the pike.

"Third, when asked about the magnitude of the administrators' raises, Superintendent Hammond expressed that removing these raises 'would not solve the budget problem.' The teacher whose position is erased by these raises certainly will have a budget problem to solve. "

On the other hand, they have offset these raises by cutting back on their own support staff, not through layoffs but through attrition. In essence, each of these individuals are having to go without support staff or performing the work of multiple individuals. Again I understand the point the teachers make, I agree with them to some degree, but they are focusing on literally pennies on the dollar here. There could have been no raises, and we would still be focusing on this plan which would require either layoffs or salary cuts. This is largely a distraction from the main issue.

"Fourth, we oppose the plan to build a $10 million high school stadium while there are schools such as Emerson Junior High which, last year, was under consideration for closure due to dilapidated facilities. Additionally, the long-term effects of the stadium financing on the general fund are not clearly delineated, and a clear payment plan has not been developed."

My understanding is that there are no impact of stadium financing on the general fund. That money comes strictly from facilities money. There was redevelopment money used to finance a portion of this. There was a strong safety issue and liability issue that exists with the stadium in its current conditions. My understanding of the issues with Emerson is that much of the repair and upgrades have to do with being out of date with various codes and can be addressed at a later point. No one believes that there are either safety or liability issues with Emerson.

While I would tend to agree in part that the district has done an exceedingly poor job of explaining this to the public. That it looks bad to be crying poor at the same time you undergo a $10 million renovation of a football field. Nevertheless, much of that public outcry is based on poor understanding of how school financing works and the fact that facilities money and general fund money that would go to instruction are completely separate, money available for facilities upgrades is not available for use in the classroom.

"We believe that salary reductions should be negotiated fairly and honestly, and only after the state budget is approved and allocations to the Davis school district are clear. Additionally, the offer of the top four district administrators should not be contingent on teachers' agreement to salary reductions."

To me this represents a lack of understanding of the collective bargaining process. The district cannot unilaterally impose changes to a contract. The changes to the contract such as reduction of salary must be approved by the Davis Teachers' Association. Therefore to a large degree the ball is in their court on this one.

As DTA President Ingrid Salim said on Thursday, it was her perspective and possibly that of the DTA membership that they would take their chance with 20 layoff notices (by her count, although the district is approving 36.6 FTE position cuts) than taking a salary cut. That is within their right to determine.

The second part of that is that they are demanding the administrators take a cut regardless. That cut is largely symbolic anyway. We are talking about maybe $30,000 or $40,000 in savings against a deficit of over $3 million over the next two years.

I am all for them taking it, but let us not make this out to be bigger than it is.

Unfortunately the district and board are taking a fiscally responsible step of identifying all of the necessary cuts up front and proposing a balanced budget for the three year period.

The really bad news is that this may not be rock bottom. There is increasing belief that the May revised budget from the state will have another deficit in the 11-figure range that will result in more cuts to education funding.

In short, while I sympathize with the position of teachers and all district employees as well as all state employees, I think that there is going to be little choice but to make the tough decision between salary cuts and pay cuts. I also think that the teachers are setting themselves up for deep layoffs in May, deeper than projected right now by not taking a further look at pay cuts.

By all means identify alternative budget cuts. All entities should do that. But if you look at the district budget, you quickly see where the majority of money goes, and it is to teachers.

It is my hope that the teachers work together with the district and board to make this as painless and cooperative a process as possible given the horrible circumstances that we face in this district, in this county, and in this state at this time.

---David M. Greenwald reporting

DJUSD Looks at State Budget Impact

DTA Stakes Out Position Against Salary Cuts

For the first time, DJUSD last night began working with real budget numbers rather than rough approximations. The bottom line is that California education took a pretty hard hit and unfortunately, they did not get the kind of full categorical flexibility that they were hoping for. In the coming days and weeks, we will examine some of these numbers more thoroughly.

Right now, we will just offer a brief summary of the district's budget picture and focus on some interesting responses from DTA and the community regarding the issue of the Davis High School Football Field and Track Renovation as well DTA's believed preference to take the 20 RFK's rather than a salary reduction.

But first a brief look at the budget climate at least right now. The state decided not to cut the number of school days. So the 180 day school remains in effect. The school district could have saved $250,000 for each day that was cut from the schedule, but that did not make it to the final budget.

Nor for all effective purposes was flexibility in the text books categorical funding. That would have been a way to save over $800,000 by forgoing updated English and Math text books. But again, that is not to be.

Finally, the speculation is that the state is going to soak up all of the federal stimulus money in order to balance their own budget. There was at one point speculation that DJUSD could get one to two million from that pot, but that is believed to be off the table as well.

There is some categorical flexibility, but that flexibility is off-set by nearly one million in categorical fund reductions. Moreover, there are decreased penalties for going over the 20:1 ratio for class size, but it is not a full flexibility either.

In short, the district is going to have to find a way to reduce its deficit and the most likely to occur either through salary cuts to employees or through pink slips.

STADIUM ISSUE

What is becoming interesting at this point is where the teachers and DTA stand in terms of what the district ought to be doing. Several came up and spoke during public comment expressing displeasure at the district's decision to fund the construction of the new DHS football stadium.

This has become a source of great criticism within the community. Indeed in the Davis Enterprise yesterday appeared two letters criticizing the building of the new stadium.

The most pointed read:

"'Teachers asked to take 2.5% pay cut' along with a higher headline citing the school board's decision to proceed with a $4 million plan to upgrade the football stadium. What a travesty!

Obviously, a stadium is more important than classrooms and teachers and student learning."

Coupled with the criticism during public comment, Superintendent James Hammond responded in perhaps his most heated manner yet attempting to explain once again the funding issue.

What the district needs to understand on this point is that they are not only losing this public relations battle, they are getting killed by it. In terms of the facts, the district is right, the funding sources are different, funds that are available for construction cannot be used for instruction.

Guess what? The public is not going to understand that. They see multimillion dollar upgrades to a football stadium and at the same time the district is contemplating about cutting teacher positions or asking them to take salary cuts, and the public is going to be suspicious of the school district.

The district now puts itself into a bad position. They either have to try to explain this to the public, which will be difficult and perhaps not fruitful. Or they can allow these beliefs to fester. There is no election at this point in time, but people do not forget these kinds of things.

From the teachers standpoint, DTA President Ingrim Salim laid it on the line last night.

"I want to address the stadium question because it is out there. I think what you should all be aware of is that certainly there is different pots of money and many of us can grasp that, but not all of us does. That’s just confusing. It’s going to be really hard to mitigate the effects of the confusion.

The second piece from the DTA standpoint is that while probably from the community standpoint they supported the stadium, certainly within the teaching community, they really wanted to see Emerson renovated. There’s not a way to fix that perception either."

The teacher issue thus is somewhat different. They understand the funding differences, at least in theory, but they believe that the priority should have been Emerson rather than the high school.

The district has a difficult position here because they are correct on two essential points. As mentioned before the funding. And the second problem is that the current situation is untenable. You have a serious safety risk, and that is a liability to the district.

However, the timing of this could not have been worse.

DTA WOULD RATHER TAKE PINK SLIPS THAN A SALARY CUT

Ingrid Salim's follow up comments were just as interesting. As she laid out for the district the likely but not official DTA position on salary cuts. Basically they would rather take the 20 position cuts rather than a reduction of salary.

Here is her lengthy statement from last night:

"Last year we did have reserves and yet we RFK’d 114 people. So people are just suspicious even though I can look at the budget numbers and see what happened as a result of last year and now we’re not being quite so conservative. But last year there was money in reserves that weren’t applied immediate to personnel. So we RFK’d people, we didn’t end up laying off, and we backfilled. We filled back in with DSF money… But we didn’t use those reserves right away. So that might give some understand about why people keep questioning about are there reserves and are suspicious that there might be. I personally don’t question that, I think we’re using them differently than we did before. That’s just the background of where that suspicion comes from.

The last piece of that is that it’s just real hard to correct misinformation that gets out. Whenever people are defensive and afraid for jobs and for money or whatever they certainly spin things. We can do our best job to try to correct misinformation but it’s just a battle. So just to know that. We can civilly disagree but the battle of misinformation will still be there. And perceptions are very hard to fight.

The other dicey piece is that you asked both unions to consider salary cuts and where w are is a combination of all of these perceptions. The reality is that we would have to have all of our membership voting or over half of them… Our union will be doing a survey to see where people are in terms of what they want to do.

But the undercurrent that we’re getting if we’re really talking about 20 jobs, and last year it was 114 and we weren’t talking about a salary cut, that probably the majority of the people say that’s okay. It’s okay to cut 20 jobs. Basically that’s programs that probably need to be tightened anyway if we’re going to have sustainable education with a smaller budget. The bulk of people that we’re hearing and getting information from, and like I said we don’t have a formal hearing to say that for sure, but that’s sort of the sense we’re getting…

We’re certainly going to ask, we’re certainly going to push forward with this concept, and there are people who say no, let’s take a cut for everyone. But that’s kind of what’s out there right now.

The final part is that there are places where we’d say it would be okay to increase class size, for instance at the 9/ 10. I’m not speaking for DTA, I’m just saying things that we might say. The 9/10 English and Math to [a class size of] 24 instead of 22. That’s not a huge impact on class size reduction. That would be preferable to something like considering a salary cut.

We do worry about the logistics of putting into place something like a salary cut or anything like that, because of the exit strategy—when do you change it? What happens to retirees? And all those little tiny things that just seem huge and overwhelming.

We will start that process next Tuesday [petitioning our members]. We’re pretty comfortable about where things are right now in terms of going forward. We’re going to be going over the budget pretty closely ourselves, finetooth combing, trying to find other ways to meet this deficit."

From my standpoint, the position laid out by Ms. Salim makes a good deal of sense from the teacher's standpoint. Salary cuts are problematic for a number of reasons including the difficulty of making ends meet during tough economic times.

Furthermore two other essential points were raise. First, the sheer number, if it is indeed 20, one would think the likelihood of anyone losing their job was pretty small. For one thing you have attrition through retirements and through people moving.

Second, she makes the point, a point that was made on this blog at times, that if we want to have a sustainable education on a smaller budget, and a smaller budget is the reality right now, then tightening up the programs is probably a way to do it.

The part that somewhat surprised me is that the teachers support a slight increase of class size at the 9/ 10 level, a level given full flexibility by the state, from 22 to 24. She argued that was not a huge impact on class size reduction but was preferable to taking a salary cut.

The bottom line here is that a salary cut would have to be negotiated with the DTA through the collective bargaining process. This was a strong and public signal that DTA is not there right now.

The school district has an ongoing perception problem in dealing with the DHS stadium repair. They had better get on top of that issue or it could backfire on them in the future.

---David M. Greenwald reporting

District Lays It All Out for the Teachers and All District Employees

There was a surreal feeling sitting in the partially filled auditorium on the Davis High School Campus. The all-employee meeting was perhaps closer to half employees, but still a robust showing. Superintendent James Hammond, about to lay it on the line for the teachers and other employees, did not recognize the uniqueness of the moment. This wouldn't have happened under his predecessor.

Perhaps it sunk home at the end, after the bad news had been laid forth, all reasonable options had been exhausted, he thanked those in attendance for coming, and they responded by clapping. It is not often news of this sort is delivered and you hear clapping, but that is what happened on this day.

There will be many tough days ahead for the Davis School District. They and the DTA still do not see eye-to-eye on specifics, though they all agree on the basics.

The purpose of this meetings, as Superintendent Hammond put it at the start was to lay out the budget status and assumptions for all to see. Discuss the possibility of salary reductions. And reiterate again that unlike the state, this school district is not going to go outside of the negotiation process.

The meeting was preceded by emailed FAQs to all employees and it will be proceeded by yet another round.

At the end of the day, the district has just one month from this coming Sunday, four weeks really, to come up with their second interim budget.

The struggle as the district has made cleared each time they have gone through this, is that we only have the governor's plan to work off of. Yesterday morning it was announced that there was a budget agreement, and the budget will go forward for a vote. One of the key questions that Superintendent Hammond laid forth was to what degree the district will be afforded flexibility in the area of categorical funds and fund balance reserves. For now they have anticipated the worst-case scenario with no flexibility.

And yet do not hold your breath on the budget agreement. As much as an agreement was announced, there is still a strong possibility that the votes are not there to pass it. Even the Republican's negotiator was noncommittal on the prospect of voting for the bill, even as he said this was the best possible deal.

After a long and apologetic speech about the difficulty of the process and a number of other comments that conveyed his general discomfort with having to deliver such bad news--sincerely delivered, Superintendent Hammond turned the discussion over to Associate Superintendent and CBO Bruce Colby.

They spent the balance of the meeting briefly walking through the budget assumptions and challenges and then addressing questions submitted by card from the employees.

As Bruce Colby explained, the district closed the fiscal year 2008 with a fund balance of around 10 million. Due to ongoing structural deficits, the fact that expenditures exceed revenues, the current fund balance is now down to $8.8 million. This year we have a $2.5 million deficit due to midyear adjustments in the budget by the state. That $2.5 million will come from the fund balance.

The goal of the district remains not to notice any employees.

Right now, our budget challenge is such that we have a $2.5 million deficit for 08-09 (that will be paid for with the fund balance). That grows to $3.3 million for 09-10 and $4.9 million for 10-11.

With the budget flexibility carryover we can we reduce our deficits. The carryover brings up to $0.1 million in surplus for this year, but $2.1 million in deficit for 09-10 and increases the deficit to $4.1 million for 10-11 since we've spent our carryover in the first two years.

If we spend down our reserves as well, we reduce 09-10 to a $1.2 million deficit but increase 10-11 to a $4.5 million deficit.

Staff layoffs or a 2.5% salary rollback will take care of the deficit for 09-10 but we will still have a $3.3 million deficit for 2010-11.

They then threw out these two numbers. A one-day reduction in the work calendar for all employees is $250,000. A one percent rollback in salary for all employees is $500,000.

If all employees take a four percent paycut, the district does not need to lay off one single employee.

Bruce Colby, Superintendent Hammond, and Kevin French then answered a series of written questions.

The first question was why DTA and the Administration were so far apart on how to balance the budget. From the district's perspective part of the governor's plan says that you can go below fund balance. However, his plan does not change ed code and the district believes you have to operate according to ed code. That means you must operate using ongoing revenue or make ongoing cuts. Fund balance reduction is one-time money, not ongoing.

The next question is why aren't all administrators offering to take a five percent pay cut like the "big four." They did not address this directly but suggested that this was a choice. It had to be a mutually agreed upon decision and all have to buy into it or it is not going to make a difference. If only a small number of employees buy into it is, it is just a symbolic offer.

Temporary teachers are hired for a single year. Late in the spring they are notified and let go. Then depending on the fiscal situation, budget, and retirements they could be rehired. Because of how late this process is being pushed this might not occur until very late in the spring if it happens at all.

A question was asked whether the pay cut comes from this year's salary level or next year if one is getting a step and column increase. It was explained that there is a matrix to determine the steps and columns and each cell in that matrix would have a 2.5% decrease. So it would be based on next year's rate.

Next question was whether the salary reductions would be one-time or ongoing. Answer is that they will be ongoing until the district has the ability to restore them.

Next question asked about the impact of salary decreases on retirement. The answer is that while it would be different based on which retirement system the employee is on, they are trying hard to not let it impact retirement.

Then next question asked about self-qualification. A qualified budget is when one does not have the ability to balance the budget over three years. You can qualify in two ways. First you can say it is balance and the County Office of Education can qualify it. Second, if the district know it cannot balance the budget for the third year, they still have to put a budget together, it would kick in another reporting period requirement, and the county could bring in a fiscal advisor. Regardless the district would still have to have a plan and make salary reductions.

There were concerns about cuts in positions to the classified employee bargaining unit. At this time there are no plans to fill positions at this time given the budget. That means that existing employees have multiple responsibilities and job titles.

There was a question about changes in class size reduction requirements. If the district were to change the K-3, and the 9th and 10th single subject class size reduction requirements from the current 20 to 1 and decrease it to 22 to 1, that would be the equivalent of 14 full time positions or FTE.

There was a question as to the salary reduction DTA would have to take in order for there to be no layoffs. As mentioned earlier, the number is 4 percent.

There was a question about the DHS Stadium. The funding for the stadium does not come from general fund money. So it has absolutely no impact on the status of the budget or employee salaries. The district cannot transfer that money to pay for employee salaries. The district considers this a very serious problem and believe that the liability from an injury is strong enough that it could have to pay a settlement from the general fund in the millions.

As such, the district is set to receive county redevelopment money as a starting lone and then looking into a debt instrument for the remaining money. That debt instrument cannot be used for general fund purposes. Just like Grande and the Nugget Fields, the money from these purposes can only be used for facilities not general fund.

Finally they clarified that the four percent reduction would mean no notices and also no class size reduction modifications.

At this time of course, DTA is arguing that the district does not need to make these kinds of cuts and is arguing for a self-qualification. However, at the end of the meeting, the response was appreciative.

The other thing I think that needs to be mentioned is the anguish that the administration and school board are going through with regards to these cuts. No one wants to make these cuts. But they believe that cutting salary will prevent layoffs and given the economic times, losing one's job could be disastrous.

Unfortunately DTA does not appear poised to agree to these cuts prior to March 15 when the second interim budget report is due and therefore, you will likely see a repeat of last year with a number of teachers notified with pink slips. It is unfortunate and it could be avoided.

The district has been clear that if flexibility enables it, the salary cuts would be the first thing off the table. Also I reiterate, do not count on the budget being passed tomorrow. Right now the votes aren't there for it, and even if it does pass, the numbers are bleak.

---David M. Greenwald reporting

District Administration Opposes Self-Qualifying Option for Budget

Yesterday, the Vanguard published excerpts from the Vanguard Radio interview with DTA President Cathy Haskell and incoming President Ingrid Salim. One of the recommendations the teachers made during this interview, was support for self-qualifying.

Ingrid Salim:

"one of the ways that we would advocate that we would make the budget balanced now is what is called a self-qualification. On paper we acknowledge that that third year out we don’t make ends meet. We will deal with that over time. If we self-qualify that way and make a couple of other cuts, there are no cuts necessary right now in order to balance the budget right now. We say that we haven’t balanced it, we acknowledge that…"

"We’re looking at something like 70 percent of districts in the state of California who might be doing that. That’s just a reflection of not having a budget now, not having assumptions, and seeing that there’s no way to make it balance in three years unless you cut your staff."

As Cathy Haskell put it, the problem this year is the state's revenue stream to local districts, not our fiscal management.

"Last year we chose to show that we had a positive certification. And to be positive it means you have to show that all three years you will be in a positive cash flow.

This year the trouble isn’t how we’re organized as a school district, it’s the funding from the state. With the Governor’s projection of what the budget for the state will be, I don’t know a district in the state that won’t be in trouble the second year out. Most of them will be trouble next year. We now have some of that cushion of Q and W, but nobody has a cushion for a 16% cut."

Today in the second part of our series, we have the response from the district Chief Budget Officer, Associate Superintendent Bruce Colby, who opposes self-qualification.

Associate Superintendent Bruce Colby's response

It is the responsibility of the DJUSD Board and district administration to ensure a healthy district protecting kids, programs, and teaching. Maintaining fiscal solvency is part of maintaining a healthy district. It is the statutory responsibility of the Board to submit a multi-year projection to the County Office of Education at interim reporting periods. This report is used to assess the fiscal health of the district. If the district is unable to show fiscal solvency over the three year reporting period, the County Office of Education is required by law to put together a fiscal intervention plan to get the district back on a healthy fiscal track. A district can voluntarily go into this intervention status or it can be assessed by the County Office of Education.

This obviously becomes a challenge during tough economic times when the State funding levels are being reduced. In order to maintain our fiscal solvency, the district must develop and approve actions to reduce expenditures if needed to close our budget gap created by the State budget. Our district is responding to this challenge and our Board and Administration are developing plans to maintain a "positive" status, thus showing ability to maintain fiscal solvency without outside intervention. This is being fiscally responsible.

Unfortunately, the budget assumptions by the State are not clear and the district must review and discuss multiple scenarios based upon different levels of assumptions. The impacts of these scenarios have been discussed including the use of operating savings, "categorical flexibility", staff reductions and employee salary reductions. In the end, balancing the budget will most likely require the use of all these options.

The DTA leadership has opined on their preference, which is to maintain current staffing levels, spend down cash reserves and "self-qualify". The Board and the Administration does not believe this is in the best interest to the long term health of the district. It does nothing to solve our fiscal challenges and puts the district at greater risk in the future. DTA leadership is only looking at the problem from a high level. Fiscal solvency means adequate cash to pay the bills. Due to the drop in State funding, use of district reserves, and slowdown of State apportionments, cash levels for the district will be much lower than in the past, requiring higher levels of short term borrowing (TRANS). This borrowing will be a at risk if the district does not respond with a realistic reduction plan. The financial markets are very much aware of the State budget and the impact on school districts. The debt rating agencies will be asking very detailed questions regarding our financials. If we have no answers, we risk getting a loan. Without a loan, we are out of cash. The district can not take this risk.

The Board and Administration are in agreement with DTA in developing solutions to maintain staff in these challenging times. The district is trying to use staff attrition when possible to develop savings, reduce operating expenses and use "categorical flexibility". This however is not enough to close the gap, and the Board is asking all employees to agree to a possible 2.5% salary reduction to save staff cuts. In order to save staff cuts prior to the March 15th notice period, employee associations must agree to a salary reduction by the end of this month.

These options will be discussed an all employee meeting schedule for this week. I have attached a report from School Services of California that describes the process for fiscal status and interventions.

{Click on the top right to enlarge and read the full document}

SSC Fiscal Report Budget Reports

Publish at Scribd or explore others: Research davis school distric selfqualification

---David M. Greenwald reporting

Davis Teachers Respond To DJUSD Budget Crisis

The Davis School District is facing a multiyear, multimillion dollar shortfall due to the state's economic and budget crisis. Complicating the already problematic nature of the state's economy is the political impasse that has gripped the state's budget process. That has meant not only are local districts facing budget cuts, they are dealing with large unknowns. The word leaking out of Sacramento is that the big five have reached a tentative agreement that could be announced today. Many are expected the results of that to be devastating to local governments and schools.

As a result of the uncertainty, the district is planning for the worst--budget cuts with zero flexibility. That means pink slips and pay cuts are on the table. Right now the proposal is for a 2.5% cut for teacher salaries.

On Wednesday of last week, the Vanguard interviewed DTA President Cathy Haskell and incoming DTA President Ingrid Salim. You can catch the entire interview here.

This is the first of a two part series. Tomorrow, we will have the district's response from Associate Superintendent Bruce Colby.

From the teacher's perspective one of the biggest concerns is to avoid a repeat of last year when there were 114 pink slip notices sent out to teachers.

Ingrid Salim:

"You may recall that despite all of the pink slips that did go out, those are the RIF notices or reduction in work force, that say that teachers might get laid off. They sent out 114 of them. They rescinded I think all of them. They ended up hiring teachers this year because some of them had already found other jobs. So we knew that they were taking a very conservative path last year."

The teachers hope that we learned something from last year however.

"We think they had learned something about the impact that had had on morale in this district this year, and at least these expectations now, even in the worst case scenario... the expectations are that RIF notices will be much much smaller. Superintendent Hammond was mentioning [Wednesday] twenty-something perhaps and that's anticipated to even go down or be rescinded after the March 15 date when they have to get out."

One of the questions that arises is if the district has and is using carryover or reserve money this year to plug some of the gaps, why didn't they use that money last year.

Igrid Salim likened it to a leaky roof situation and whether you use your savings account to fix the leaky roof or you hold onto in case there is a worse problem down the line.

"You have a savings account, do you fix the leaky roof now or do you keep the savings account because something worse might happen later and just live with the leaky roof? That's not a fair analogy here, but in the end it is the board who makes the decisions about how to use the money."

In the end she said, the board felt more comfortable in terms of the overall status of the budget, by sending out pink slip notices to quite a lot of teachers rather than eat into the reserves.

However both teachers felt that this had a hugely detrimental effect on the morale of teachers, the students, the parents, the community and even the board and administration.

"We did learn last year that if you lay people off, even if they’re rehired that it has an enormous price on morale, which in the end has a consequence in the classroom and for education overall. I certainly know that our chief financial officer Bruce Colby and our Superintendent Dr. James Hammond have been incredibly earnest about wanting to not lay off people. They have certainly learned that that was a horrible process to go through."

One of the key questions facing the district is how much flexibility the district will in dealing with the decreased amount of money.

Ingrid Salim:

"Things are going to be dire in terms the budget coming from the state which we don't have yet. We have a couple of proposals, the Democrats have one proposal, the Governor has a different one slightly. Each of them have a lot of different factors which will impact how much money we are not getting from the state, not how much we get, but how much they will take back."

However, regardless of the proposal, we could get something in the way of flexibility.

Cathy Haskell:

"We have looked at flexibility offered in the Governor's proposal and there's some in the Democrats' proposal, but where pretty sure we're going to get some flexibility."

The two biggest areas would be an ability to use more of the carryovers from the previous year than we normally would. That would be a chunk of money according to Ms. Haskell. The other chunk would come from class size reduction money, something that the teacher's would like to avoid even in Davis where that would simply mean going from 20 to 22 students per classroom.

Ingrid Salim explained how the categorical process works.

"Unlike our paycheck that we get every month that we can use however we want, budgets for school districts have little categories that you can only use for specific things, for example, buildings are called facilities money. You can't use those monies to pay teachers."

One item that might be cut would be money for new textbooks.

Ms. Salim explained that while the could use new Math and English textbooks, teachers are a much higher priority:

"We do have books, we could use new ones but we don't *need* them, we need teachers."

One of the big questions, and one of the things that the board and administration are asking teachers to do is to give up salary and possibly instructional days in order to balance the budget.

For both this seems to be the area of last resort, cutting salaries.

Ingrid Salim:

"We’ve talked long and hard about what we’d be willing to do. The short answer is this: there has been a suggestion that we give up a couple of days of salary, and the other union has been asked the same, and the administrators have been told that they will be expected to do that."

Cathy Haskell said that cutting two days from the instructional calendar would be approximately one percent pay cut. So a 2.5% pay cut would be the equivalent to five days of instructional time.

Ms. Haskell:

"There are some very interesting discussions about what does it mean to have one less day of school. Or does it mean that we still have that day of school, we just don’t get paid for it."

Ingrid Salim quickly followed up on that thought:

"So what she’s referring to is a voluntary cut in salary without a reduction in days. That’s another option on the table."

However, the teachers seem opposed to this option.

"We believe that there are measures that we can still take that on paper will of course balance the budget without us having to give up."

However, the district seems to feel otherwise and are now moving ahead with a plan to cut 2.5% from salaries. A plan that may not come to fruition depending on what the budget looks like as it announced today (if it announced today).

"Our reasoning is that it’s not just us giving up salaries, which absolutely we are affected by, but it certainly takes away from the educational process in this district. So if take away two days from instructional time, that’s two days students are not in class. If we take two work days from our time, that’s two days that we’re not preparing. We don’t feel that this serves education and we’re not willing to take the hit when there are other things that can be done."

She continued:

"Unfortunately it would impact real people who already make less than half of what our top administrators make. We don’t really want to point that out all the time, they do a tremendous job. But most of us are parents that have children that live and work in this city. We make the normal salary that teachers make, it’s not off the charts, it’s livable, but it would hurt us, we would feel that particular amount [of cuts]."

However, she said that as a last resort, and there is nothing else that can be done, they would be willing to enter into discussions on this. They simply believe that other options exist at this time.

Ms. Salim continued:

"If we felt we had to do that in order to put the district in a state where it had a balanced budget, I think we’d be willing to talk about that. We really do believe there are ways to begin addressing the budget deficit."

One of the biggest differences that is emerging between the board and the teachers is the issue of self-qualification. The district is required to show a balanced budget for a full three years. Under normal conditions that is a reasonable requirement. But when you do not actually have a budget, it gets tricky to try to budget for the third year.

As Ingrid Salim put it:

"It’s the absurdity of trying to balance the budget three years out without even a current to really work on. We’re talking about assumptions, putting numbers into a spreadsheet, plugging in equations, to figure out numbers for a budget that we don’t even have."

The district is moving toward more draconian cuts right now primarily because it is trying to have a positive assessment for 2010-11. The alternative is to balance the budget for this year and next year, and then address the problems with 2010-11 in the future when there is more certainty.

That is the approach the teachers favor.

Ingrid Salim:

"one of the ways that we would advocate that we would make the budget balanced now is what is called a self-qualification. On paper we acknowledge that that third year out we don’t make ends meet. We will deal with that over time. If we self-qualify that way and make a couple of other cuts, there are no cuts necessary right now in order to balance the budget right now. We say that we haven’t balanced it, we acknowledge that…"

She continued:

"We don’t want to cut salaries; we don’t to want to cut people. Let’s allow ourselves to be self-qualified. Let’s allow us to take our reserves down to the legal limit—it’s been hinted that we’d be allowed to drop them further than they are. That’s a little bit nerve wracking because it means you have less in your savings account. We advocate let’s do that first—yes, it’s less conservative, but we believe it’s a better policy to keep people and keep their salaries where they are and allow them to live, than it would be to do anything else."

The teachers feel respected in this process by administration.

"We’re feeling valued from them [the administrators]. We’re not completely sure that the board understands all of that. But then we acknowledge that none of them are fiscal experts. They are all people donating their time mostly to serve in this capacity. We really appreciate the amount of time and energy that they put in trying to wrap their minds around pretty big issues. It’s quite a lot for them to take in in small amounts."

Last year, the district tried like the plague to avoid self-qualifying. The fear was that the county would take over the school district and that would be a horrific outcome, we would lose out autonomy.

"Last year, don’t self-qualify… the county will come in… They heard this over and over. So they took action that was very conservative to prevent that. This year, they’re hearing the sky won’t fall in, it will be okay."

It is difficult to understand why that has changed now. However, according to the teachers, what has changed is the fiscal circumstance of the state.

Cathy Haskell was actually willing to take more of a chance last year rather than face the wrath of 114 layoff notices.

"I think it has to do with your level of risk that you have to take… 30% of the school districts last year ended up doing not a positive certifications. This year with the numbers the way they look it is for me not a surprise to hear that self-qualifying keeps you from doing some things that maybe you don’t want to do. I was actually ready last year to take more risk, but as a collection of people we couldn’t get there. I think we’re in a much different place this year, knowing that it’s not about this year, it’s not about next year, it’s about the second year out. Last year we were actually talking about the current year."

One of the things that has changed is that the process was horrible that no one wants a repeat of that scenario this year.

As Ingrid Salim explained, the entire point of self-qualifications is to prevent districts from mismanaging their money. During an economic crisis when the state is drastically cutting back its funding for local districts, counties are not going to immediately assume that districts are in the red in year three because of fiscal mismanagement. This is particularly true for districts that have a good track record.

"We’re looking at something like 70 percent of districts in the state of California who might be doing that. That’s just a reflection of not having a budget now, not having assumptions, and seeing that there’s no way to make it balance in three years unless you cut your staff."

As Cathy Haskell put it, the problem this year is the state's revenue stream to local districts, not our fiscal management.

"Last year we chose to show that we had a positive certification. And to be positive it means you have to show that all three years you will be in a positive cash flow.

This year the trouble isn’t how we’re organized as a school district, it’s the funding from the state. With the Governor’s projection of what the budget for the state will be, I don’t know a district in the state that won’t be in trouble the second year out. Most of them will be trouble next year. We now have some of that cushion of Q and W, but nobody has a cushion for a 16% cut."

Igrid Salim continued:

"Both from Bruce Colby’s understanding of what this means and the circumstances and the landscape changing, a self-qualification today isn’t going to mean the same thing that it meant a year ago."

Moreover, the hope is that seeing actual numbers will produce less drastic results.

"We want to wait and see how the budgets are going to really come in over the next year, and then we’ll accommodate that. We know that counties now are going to look at that and say okay, they’re thinking about that, they’re on top of it, they’re not losing it, they’re not going to be going bankrupt… So the reigns are a little bit more lax."

Ms. Salim also believes that because so many districts are facing these fiscal problems, that counties will be more reluctant to intervene, having not the resources to do so. In the worst case scenario, the county could hire an accountant to oversee the district's books. But she played down even this possibility.

“We don’t expect that to happen because there will be so many in this situation and because it’s a reasonable situation now. If we were flush with money, it wouldn’t be reasonable to be self-qualifying.”

One thing both agreed upon is that there is no way to cut our budget without deep cuts. The bad news is that we do not have a lot of pork and extra programs that can simply be cut. So any cut that the district makes will be painful.

Tomorrow we will see that the district does not agree with some of these assessments by the teachers, particularly with regards to self-qualification and also cuts to teacher salaries.

---David M. Greenwald reporting

Drastic Measures and Grandiose Gestures by the School District

The headlines that came out of Thursday's school board meeting were dramatic with the Superintendent suggesting that the top four administrators would take double the pay cut that they were asking teachers to take in order to send the message that they were serious about the school budget crisis. Beneath those sensational headlines is a truth that is every bit as bleak but perhaps not quite as sexy.

The truth is somewhere in between here. The first factor that people need to understand is that in some ways what was discussed on Thursday night was the choice of the school board. They were presented options the previous week and could have chosen to self-qualify.

Self-qualification is a complicated process that was explained on the Vanguard radio show fairly well on Wednesday night. But in short, given the budget crisis, the district could have taken the latest assumptions from the governor's budget, said that they would deal with 2010-11 in due time, and cal it a budget.

The problem as Cathy Haskell current DTA President and Ingrid Salim, incoming DTA President explained on the radio show is that the board was told last year that self-qualification would be a red flag to the county that there were fiscal problems. That is because a large extent of the district's fiscal problems last year were in-house and local. That is not the case this year. There are estimates that 70% of the state will self-qualify. The reason for self-qualification is that the first two years of the budget would be balanced but the third year, 2010-11, would have an on-paper deficit that would need to be addressed. In a state budget crisis year, this is not the alarm bell that it would have been last year.

Nevertheless the board was not comfortable with self-qualification and instead are looking for the three year balanced budget. The result is additional pain of trying to anticipate three years out without even hard numbers for this year's budget. And they must do it by March 15.

As Sheila Allen put it on Thursday:

"It's just so frustrating that we have deadlines that we have to meet and other elected officials are not. So we're working with 'fiction' and we're messing with real people's lives when it's based on fiction, it's very frustrating."

In addition to the school board making the situation harder, Thursday's budget also assumed no flexibility. This is probably a wise decision at some level. The CTA has launched a veritable battle against any flexibility in CSR (Class Size Reduction) requirements. Moreover, they have opposed categorical flexibility as well. Still, it appears likely there would be some flexibility.

As we walk quickly through the numbers, all of this suggests that the grand gesture (largely symbolic) made by the top four might actually be a worst case scenario rather than the operating assumption that was suggested in the headlines on Friday.



The budget challenge as laid out by Bruce Colby is how we reduce the cost of delivering our programs without reduce the level of the programs we provide. Moreover, the district has a structural deficit, it is basically eating at least $1 million in reserve each year by these budget assumptions. It is doing that in order to both maintain our programs and avoid the painful layoffs that were proposed last year.



In short, what the district needs to do is to reduce on-going expenditures by $4.9 million or more over the next two years to maintain fiscal solvency. That is $3.3 million in 2009-10 and an additional $1.6 million in 2010-11. And 2010-11 is probably on the low side unless the economy and budget forecast improves. Even with that, the district will continue to have a structural deficit of $1 million which will need to be addressed by 2011-12.

As Associate Superintendent Bruce Colby said:

"At some point we will run out of reserves and we will have to close the gap for the last million dollars."

The district examined the salary breakdown for 2009-10 by bargaining unit. Their proposed cuts are roughly proportional cuts across the three classifications ranging from 3.68% among classified (support staff), 3.88% among certificated (teachers) and 4.15% among unrepresented (management and administrators).

Under this scenario they are taking out three counselors, they think they can find 200,000 by shifting around unused parcel tax money, but $910,000 is coming from increasing the student to teacher ratio for grades 4-12 which are not governed by CSR requirements. That means losing teachings, perhaps as many as 14. Some of that could be obtained through attrition--retirements and transfers.

However, and here is where the real painful decisions come in. Those cuts still leave the district one million dollars short.

So the bottom column on the grid shows the possibilities for accomplishing that savings. One is what was talked about last week, would be federal stimulus package dollars. It is possible the district will get $2.7 million, but we would have to look more closely at the Senate's version. There is also a possibility that the Davis Schools Foundation will be able to raise some of that money, but these days are a bit tougher for raising money than a year ago.

On the other side of the ledger are flexibilities that could be granted by the legislature. The adult education program has a $200,000 that is categorical money, which means that the district could be allowed to use it for general fund if they get flexibility on that. There is an additional $1.1 million in categorical money that could be used if granted by the legislature. And then there is about $1 million in CSR that could be used if they raise the ratio of students to teachers from 20 to 22. However, as mentioned that is going to be a political fight and the DTA seems to believe that there are other ways to get that money.

Now here is finally where we get to the sexy headlines which are not so sexy. If all else fails, one possibility is that the teachers and in fact all employees take a 2.5% pay reduction. That would free up $1.26 million that would cover that million hole.

It is here that we see the offer from the top four administrators coming into play.

Superintendent James Hammond:

"If there were to be any type of salary reduction for employees, that we would double whatever that salary reduction would be. So if we are looking at a 2.5% reduction to every employee in the district, then we the four of us would incur a 5% reduction for the 09-10 school year in order to contribute to our ability to prevent layoffs."

And let us not take away from this gesture. Because it is important to know that the administration is willing to share the pain, particularly after we have been so critical of Bruce Colby taking a pay increase of roughly 5% in these budget times. He is willing to give that back should it be needed.

As Board President told the Enterprise:

"They've being leaders."

But clearly this is the worst case scenario and the last resort. However, it does appear that the administration got the message from the community that has complained about administrative raises during a year when the district was contemplating layoffs and teachers were not getting raises.

The bottom line here is that while that gesture is appreciated a lot has to go wrong for it to be implemented.



However, we are not done. The cuts in 2010-11 under current assumptions amount to $1.65 million. Remember however those are on top of the cuts that would be implemented for 09-10.

At this point we are really getting into pure personnel unless the district gets stimulus money, gifts, or categorical flexibility. Because the district is looking for a three-year balanced budget, they are looking at 8 teacher layoffs for $520,000 in savings, 12 secretarial layoffs for another half million, and the loss of nearly three site administrators for $295,000. The latter represents a 6.26% cut in funding for the unrepresented bargaining unit, compared to 4.59% for classified, and 1.59% for certificated.

Those cuts however still leave the district nearly $300,000 short of balance.

In short, the district is making a lot of tough decisions right now that they really might not have to make depending on how the budget pans out. Much of this is due to the board's apprehension to do a self-qualification and work toward a balance for 2010-11 with more realistic assumptions.

There are going to be teacher's noticed. That is now unavoidable. It will not be the 100 or so that were noticed last year. But as the DTA representatives said on Wednesday, that took a huge emotional and psychological toll.

As Superintendent Hammond put it:

"There could be overnoticing going on but we do not know what the rules of flexibility are going to be."

As Board President Gina Daleiden put it:

"No one would do this unless we were at the very last resort."

I understand some of the rationale for doing it this way, but I'm not fully convinced it is the last resort. Given the state budget picture, a self-qualification does not seem to put the district in the kind of risk they would have been in last year, they need to trust their Superintendent and Chief Budget Officer who just last week recommended the self-qualification route to avoid these kinds of drastic cuts that may not have to be implemented. I understand the frustration that Board Member Sheila Allen expressed at the state budget process, the school districts are one of many victims of that inaction. But I am not convinced this was the only way to do this based on the other alternatives out there.

---David M. Greenwald reporting

Should DJUSD Alter its Secondary Education Grade Level Configuration and School Facilities?

An interesting discussion is beginning in the next few weeks, there will be site level meetings beginning tonight at Emerson, tomorrow night at Harper, next Tuesday at Holmes, and a week from Thursday at Davis High. The purpose of these meetings will be to gather input from parents and local residents in particular about grade-level configuration and district facilities.

Currently Davis High School is set up as a Grade 10 through 12 school. That is rather unusual however, most high schools, 90 percent in California in fact, are 9 through 12. Such a configuration represents both advantages and disadvantages as we learned last year through some preliminary discussion.

One of the big advantages is that it allows 9th graders to remain on junior high campuses rather than pushing them to the high school where they face added pressures as has been stated a number of times--it tends to keep the ninth graders younger rather than mixing them with 16 to 18 year-olds.

On the downside, the curriculum for 9th graders is set up more like that of the high school, this forces the junior high to provide those level classes to 9th graders resulting in inefficiencies and economy of scale problems.

In an November interview with the Enterprise, Superintendent James Hammand emphasized the fact that no decision had been made yet.

He said:

"One of the main things I'm seeking is for people to evaluate grade configuration through a couple of lenses... One is the programmatic and instructional lens. Are we configured the best way possible, the best way to maximize student achievement"

"The other lens is the fiscal and physical lens. When you take a headcount of our students, and look at our facilities, are we as efficient and effective as we can be?"

However, a number of groups and community members have expressed concerns about the change.

Becky Linville, Eric Davis, and Paul Stukas recently wrote a letter in opposition to the current proposal:

"We write on behalf of the Davis Friends of Neighborhood Schools, formed to support the current grade-level configuration of Davis schools (K-6, 7-9 and 10-12). We oppose the Davis Joint Unified School District's expected proposal to move approximately 680 ninth-graders into the crowded Davis High School campus of 1,700-plus students.

The district has shown no evidence that such a reconfiguration will assist the academic or emotional growth of our ninth-graders, or any other students in the district. Why risk our district's current academic achievements and low dropout rate by such a profound change?"

On the group's website:

"Friends of Neighborhood Schools believes there should be a compelling reason to change the Grade Level Configuration of the Davis Schools. At this point, we do not believe a compelling case has been shown. We have not seen any evidence or research that shows changes to the Grade Level Configuration will improve the quality of our children's education.

If 680 ninth graders are moved to the high schools next school year, there will be a net increase of approximately 400 students at DHS (assuming Da Vinci High School moves to Valley Oak and 80% of the Da Vinci students will move). Many people in Davis think DHS is too crowded now; how will it be with a net increase of 400 students? [NOTE: The Da Vinci Charter Academy petition approved by the School Board includes 10-12th grades at Valley Oak, and 7-9th grades phased in at Emerson Jr. High]."

The big question at this point is whether this is a fiscal decision or an educational decision. There seems to be costs associated with the current model in terms of providing the range of classes for 9th graders. On the other hand, it appears that moving kids to the high school would have drawbacks as well. As the group stated above, Davis High is already considered too large, and now you could propose making it a campus of 1700 students. The alternative would be to create two smaller high schools, but that would incur cost of converting a Junior High Campus, possibly Harper into a High School Campus.

The real question is whether the current system is actually broke rather than whether Davis schools are unusual. The fiscal environment make such matters important, but educational considerations ought to first come first.

Board President Gina Daleiden:

"I would like the discussion to include a broad conversation about our educational system, including financial, education and facilities uses in the future... It is very difficult to look at any of these pieces in isolation."

Boardmember Sheila Allen:

"I'll be interested in a balanced analysis of both the educational and fiscal impacts of various grade and site configurations. While we need to continue to look for financial efficiencies, we have to ensure that our excellent programs are supported by the structure at our schools."

Boardmember Susan Lovenburg:

"We must consider carefully the educational and social aspects of a change in our current grade configuration, as well as the financial implications. How do we best serve our students given the resources available? And understanding what the community values is an important part of making this decision."

While the issue is likely to cause controversy, the district appears at this point to be going about this the right way, by having meetings and reaching out to the community first before any decision is made. That is the fortunate part of acting proactively rather than what happened last Spring when the district was in crisis and desperately looking for any way possible to save money.

Here are the times and the locations:

* TONIGHT at Emerson Junior High

* TOMORROW NIGHT at Harper Junior High

* Tuesday, Jan. 27, at Holmes Junior High

* Thursday, Jan. 29, at Davis High School

---David M. Greenwald reporting

Measure W Wins with an Overwhelming 75% of the Vote; Measure N Goes Down

Measure W needed two-thirds majority to pass, instead it got three-quarters majority. All along, I thought it was headed to a very narrow win, instead it won by an overwhelming majority. With 100% of the precincts reporting, Measure W received just under 22,000 votes on the yes side compared to just 7000 votes on the No side. It is an overwhelming mandate for continued high quality education in Davis.

In the coming days, I will speak to what this means and what it does not mean. Right now, let us just say that the people of Davis have spoken in a way that the few on the blog who have been dissenters all along cannot speak. Just as the people stepped up last spring to prevent disaster, the voters have stepped up to do the same. There will not be teacher layoffs, not this year, not in this school district.

Meanwhile, I would be loathe to mention that the Charter City concept rightly went down to defeat and back to the drawing board. The solace that backers of a better charter might take is that it was a narrow defeat, at least in comparison to the victory of W. Just 2000 votes separated yay from nay. And so, if Councilmember Lamar Heystek and Stephen Souza are so inclined, we can have a real public process this time and put a good measure on the ballot, that all of us can get behind. Measure N was not that measure.

But this morning belongs to Measure W and its backers. The Vanguard spoke by phone last night when it was not certain that W had passed, but it looked like it would.

Janet Berry has twice saved this schools district. First as the head of the Davis Schools Foundation and then as the Co-Chair of the Yes on Measure W committee.

"I am encouraged by the early returns and the fact that the community is really coming together and showing that it values education."

School board member Gina Daleiden who called me around 5 pm to tell me that they had won this election, but she did not want that said at the time with three hours to go before the ballots even closed. She told me at midnight last night:

"I'm thankful that we live in a community that truly values education. When times are difficult our community steps up and supports our children and our schools. "

She then added:

"This one of the broadest coalitions I've ever seen behind a campaign. I think that that's quite a testament to the school support that our community gives to education and our schools. "

She pointed out the support of the Chamber of Commerce, Downtown Business, Yolo Taxpayers Association, all of the PTAs, the Realitors, the Aggie, the Sacramento Bee, the Enterprise, the Vanguard, you name it.

Finally after 1 pm last night, the Vanguard spoke with District Superintendent James Hammond.

First, the Vanguard asked the Superintendent how he felt at this time:

"With the preliminary numbers, I'm obviously encouraged. I am definitely feeling good about our ability to weather the financial instability of the state and try to at least protect certain programs and protect any significant cuts that would affect the district in the future. Obviously there are no guarantees, because we now have to wait to see what the January budget from the governor states. But we're definitely in the position to take local control of the programs that our community is accustomed to having. "

The Vanguard then asked him what the future held with the prospects for the state budget looking very bleak in the foreseeable future:

"We obviously are going to have to keep a very close eye on how the state's budget is going to create a local impact for us here in the district. We definitely want to make sure that we have a good understanding of the revenues that the state is following short on in its projections if any midyear cuts are forced upon us. Also at the same time, try to build a reserve to try to be able to spread it over a multiyear budget we are required to submit."

Finally, the Vanguard asked him if there was a possibility with a bad budget forecast of future parcel taxes, a possibility he immediately and clear discounted.

"You know, I don't see that being a realistic meaneuver any time in the very near future. We've already gone to our community two years in a row , but obviously that's ultimately a board decision. In the near foreseeable future, I don't see that being a consideration."

The people of the district have shown overwhelming support once again for the district and for education. However, it should not be viewed as any kind of blank check. More than a year ago, many people eventually voted for this measure because they believe in education and have always voted to support education. But there seemed from so many I talked to, mixed feelings about a number of topics.

We will talk about this later in the week. In the meantime, the district deserves not so much to celebrate but to take a collective breath. It has indeed been a very long year for the district and the district with this vote survives though it will not prosper, not with the governor already threatening additional cuts and the people of Davis about tapped out.

---David M. Greenwald reporting

Rumors About Emerson Continue, Irrational as They May Be

No, it is not just on this blog. I hear and get asked about whether Emerson is going to close wherever I go. There is a persistent rumor that the closure of Emerson is fait accompli regardless of the outcome of Measure W.

As I have argued this is completely illogical. I will break down that illogic shortly. I would submit to the readers of this, that if you want Emerson to close, then you should vote against Measure W, because voting against Measure W will almost surely lead to the closure of the school. If you want to strongly increase the likelihood of Emerson remaining open, and these are the words of Superintendent James Hammond whom I will quote fully below, then you should vote for the Parcel Tax.

I will get to those words of the Superintendent in a moment. First we need to logic through this argument.

Why Emerson Closes if Measure W Fails

The school district last spring estimated that the closure of Measure W would save the district roughly $600,000 in site specific operating expenses. That is largely without the lay off of teachers.

That is the biggest single chunk of money that can be saved with terminating or eliminating teacher positions. In fact, that represents around a quarter of the money that they would need to cut if Measure W fails.

If given the choice between teachers and a facility, they are going to pick the facility every time. (I will get to why they eliminated Emerson for this list last spring below).

The problem that you face when you have a number like $2.4 million is that you really cannot nickel and dime your way to budget cuts. They have already trimmed two major positions from the district's administration including an Assistant Superintendent whose contract was not renewed and whose position was not replaced.

The good news for the district is that 82% of the district's discretionary general fund budget goes directly to the classroom, but the bad news is the same. It means to get meaningful cuts, you have to cut from the classroom. Of the remaining 18% of the budget that does not directly go to the classroom, 9% of the budget goes to ground operations such as custodians and only 7% of the budget goes to administration.

That means you are either cutting teachers or you cutting facilities. Again, that means if you have to cut $2.4 million and can get a quarter of that without laying off a single teacher, guess what they do?

So by all means, if you want to have Emerson close, vote no on W. The illogic of people who say because they won't guarantee Emerson stays open if W passes, they will therefore vote against W and ensure that Emerson closes, is mindboggling.

Why Emerson Stays Open if Measure W Passes

There are issues of the facility that will prevent the guarantee of Emerson staying open. But, most available rationale indicates that it most likely has to stay open if the general fund is not in deficit.

People try to link Emerson and Valley Oak. But Emerson has advantages (many of them) that Valley Oak never had.

As Superintendent James Hammond said on the Vanguard Radio show in mid-October:

"It's not like the closure of an elementary school where you have eight or nine sites, you have three junior high sites spread across town, so you have logistical concerns to evaluate."

This is not a defense of closing Valley Oak, but when they had to close Valley Oak, you have at least three schools within close proximity to Valley Oak. North Davis Elementary and Birch Lane are both within nine-tenths of a mile and Korematsu is just one and a half miles. That means that you are generally redirecting students within a relative close proximity. Now as we know from the Valley Oak issue that arose last year, you are still putting a burden on parents and making it more difficult for young children to walk and bike to school. Nevertheless, it is not a logistical nightmare for the district.

On the other hand, the Junior High scenario is much more tricky. You have Holmes Junior High a full 3.3 miles from Emerson. That is a logistical nightmare in a school district that does not have district busing transportation. That reason alone is why the district held off on closing Emerson as a possibility last spring and why it will likely not close it in the future if there are funds.

And remember they cannot simply move all of the Emerson students to Holmes, they would have to move a good portion of Holmes students to Harper, another two miles away.

So unlike having a simple situation where a few relatively close elementary schools can absorb additional students, you have a tough scenario where you are moving a large amount of students a good distance away.

These logistical problems relegate Emerson to a worst-case scenario closure rather than a likely closure if the general fund is in relatively good condition.

I pressed Superintendent Hammond on this issue during the October 15 radio show. Here's what he told me.

"The status on Emerson, to be quite honest, right now there is no decision. I mean we are status quo. There has been no formal discussion about Emerson between the staff and the board since last spring... Emerson has challenges but it doesn't mean there's an imminent closure waiting for it. There's facility concerns. It's not like the closure of an elementary school where you have eight or nine sites, you have three junior high sites spread across town, so you have logistical concerns to evaluate, facility concerns to evaluate. But by no means is there any type of hidden agenda to close the school. I think that that is one of the things even after passing the budget that we still deal with today."

Thus he completely denies that there is any kind of hidden agenda. On the other hand he cannot make promises.

"I can't make any promises as a superintendent particularly when it comes to the instability of the state budget and the inadequacy of how schools are funded."

He lays it out pretty clearly here, he believes that if we get the funding, the "likelihood" of Emerson staying open increases. And if we do not get the funding, the "likelihood" of closure increases.

"I would like to think, and what I say with my own words without representing anyone else, that with additional revenue in this case from Measure W, probably increases, and I use this word intentionally, the likelihood, the likelihood of things staying status quo, the lack of funds that we get if we're not successful with the parcel tax or we have to re-run a parcel in '09 at a lesser amount and we get a very bad January revise like we're expecting, the likelihood of being back where we were last spring increases. And as you know David, everything is back on the table and being evaluated and discussed. And that is my fear, that being in a place early in our school year where our fiscal indicates that we have to make some cuts and that's where I don't want to be."

Again, Measure W's passage will not guarantee that Emerson stays open. It will not. What Measure W does is take all of the position that Measure W funds, all of the teaching positions and it guarantees them for the next three years. Those positions by law cannot be eliminated. That frees up other money to go to keep Emerson open.

If the district does not have that money from Measure W then they have a choice, they can either terminate the positions that W would have funded or they can try to save money by closing schools. My guess is that they are going to close at least one school if they do not get Measure W or if they have to pass a smaller parcel tax in the spring.

Again, if you want to insure that Emerson closes, vote against the parcel tax. Because if the parcel tax fails and they have to come with a smaller amount in the spring, Emerson is likely gone. If you want Emerson to have a possibility to remain open, you have to vote for Measure W.

With $2.4 million, you are not going to nickel and dime your way to a balanced budget. If it were $0.24 million you might have a chance to. But with it at $2.4 million you have to cut from that 82% of the budget, and that is classroom money.

Again, the illogic of the position, they won't guarantee Emerson so I'll vote against Measure W is breathtaking. The reverse is most likely true.

---David M. Greenwald reporting

State to Ask Davis Schools to Return $4.5 Million?

The Davis Enterprise reported yesterday that the Davis school district could be asked to return the $4.5 million it received just last year from the state in matching funds for the construction of Montgomery Elementary.

"That's apparently the gist of a new legal opinion from the state Attorney General's Office, directed to members of the State Allocation Board. The school district's appeal will be heard at a SAB meeting next Wednesday in Sacramento.

If the Davis district is asked to return the money, it will effectively reverse the SAB's decision in August 2007 to award the $4.5 million to the Davis district, following a lengthy appeal of an earlier decision by the Office of Public School Construction to deny the funds."

Last year, the school district received the $4.5 million plus matching funds from the state after a lengthy appeals process that we have highlighted. This stems from the district back in 2001 and 2002, missing critical state deadlines and therefore becoming ineligible.

However, after a long process, the district finally received the money last year.

Bruce Colby, the current Chief Budget Officer for the District expressed his surprise to the district, noting that the state formally approved the funds and the district received the money. After that, the district considered the matter close.

Colby told the Enterprise:

"It's unprecedented for the SAB to ask for money back after they've approved the money and sent the money."

Assemblywoman Lois Wolk who was also involved in the process of recouping the matching funds was similarly baffled.

"I was very surprised by the action of the Office of Public School Construction staff to try to reverse the decision of the State Allocation Board. In 2007, the SAB decided on a 7-3 vote to support the Davis school district's appeal for funding. Since then, the district has received the funds owed to them.

I see no reason to reopen this issue again. I will be working with the members of the State Allocation Board to ensure that the district's funding is secure."

Commentary:

This is a baffling decision by the state. The district has long since acknowledged the errors that led to the original loss of eligibility for the matching fund. They have implemented new fiscal policies, hired a new CBO (Mr. Colby), even hired a new Superintendent in James Hammond. They have done the due diligence to correct whatever fiscal problems existed under the previous CBO and the previous Superintendent.

What is gained now by revisiting this issue? The State Allocation Board already met and made their determination. The school district has already received the money from the state, and undoubtedly has already spent it to pay off the bonds that were used to finance the building project in lieu of matching funds.

At this point, any attempt by the state to take back that money would have to be considered punitive. What possible purpose would it serve at this point in time?

The State Allocation Board will meet next Wednesday.

Before people jump to conclusions, understand that this money is for facilities only. It cannot be used for the general fund. Therefore, this has absolutely no impact on the parcel tax. If there is a deficit as a result of this, the parcel tax money cannot be used for it. The parcel tax is explicitly allocated already. However, general fund money cannot be used for facilities and vice-versa.

"Under state law, the matching funds can only be used to fund facilities projects - such as modernization of existing school buildings, or construction of new school buildings. (The money can't be used to pay teacher salaries.)

The Davis school district ran short on facilities funds in 2007, and borrowed money to complete construction of the new building for Martin Luther King High School, which was dedicated in November 2007. 'Part of (the state matching funds) is to pay back the King loan,' Colby said Tuesday."

Also, the school district cannot pass another parcel tax in order to pay off this $4.5 million.

This needs to be very clear--the general fund and the facilities fund are completely separate and money cannot flow between the two.

The immediate concern will obviously be on the district's part to retain the money at the hearing next week.

This is another very concerning development. There appears to be no rhyme or reason for such as decision by the state to re-open this case.

---David M. Greenwald reporting