Today the Superintendent published a bulletin on the state of the School District’s budget and a special Board meeting we are having tomorrow night (Tuesday, 12/16 at 7:30pm in the Central library). As it is quite thorough, I will let his note speak for itself:
We face a real and severe financial crisis and tomorrow night we will begin a series of many community discussions on how to navigate through it at a special board meeting in the CMS library at 7:30 PM.
The school board is beginning discussions on significant program and staff cuts for 2009-2010. These cuts could include reducing or cutting elementary PE instructors, eliminating the watering of athletic fields, cutting healthy cities tutoring, reducing custodial staffing, reducing staff development programs, and much more. We are still facing a likely reduction of another $800,000 in program and staffing cuts after the state enacts the mid-year reductions in the current budget.
When we placed Measure S on the ballot last summer we thought we might be able to augment our services to students. Now we know that even if Measure S had passed, we would now still be facing budget reductions.
Why? As of last August we did not know the state legislature would pass a budget that was fatally flawed. How flawed was it? The day it was signed by the governor, the experts who advise school districts told us that it would not make it through the year and they were right. Last August, we did not know that our county treasurer would lose nearly $600,000 dollars of our money. And then the economy had a collapse of the magnitude that very few people living today have personally experienced.
The effect of these combined factors and some other increased costs mean a number of things to our school district. While we had a reserve of 12% a year ago and projected that in two years our reserve would be nearly 7%. Now we are projecting that in less than two years we will have less than a 3% reserve and only if we cut hundreds of thousands of dollars from our budget in the next two years!
If the state reduces our budget during the current school year, as we are being told they must, we may have to cut $800,000 or more from our budget in the next two years.
Finally, if our current parcel tax expires and is not renewed before 2010-2011, we will have to cut an additional $1,000,000 from our budget. Our schools will be radically different if all of these things occur.
The Board, staff, and I will spent the rest of this year planning and preparing for this worst case scenario but we are hopeful that we can all rally together to improve our financial state. We will ask you for your input and ideas.
Lastly, I am going to ask you to do a number of things:
Attend board meetings if you can. We are starting with a special board meeting on Tuesday, Dec. 16, at the Central School Library at 7:30
Support the San Carlos Educational Foundation (www.scef.us). Now, more than ever, there efforts are vital to our educational program.
Help us pass a new parcel tax. Please do whatever you can. Vote, volunteer, donate to the campaign.
And finally, please stay optimistic and positive. I firmly believe that we can all do better and accomplish more when we stay focused and believe in ourselves and those around us. If we are stubborn and unrelenting in our belief that we can pull together and get through these tough times, then we will certainly do the best we can for our kids and our community.
