Trustees to Vote on School Budget

Finance and fiscal matters will take up the majority of the school board meeting at 4:30 p.m. Thursday.

The trustees will vote on the proposed 2011-2012 budget.  In crafting it, Assistant Superintendent of Business Services Randie Allen operated on the correct assumption that the state would not be able to meet its funding obligations to local schools.

Governor Jerry Brown was unable to generate support among Republicans to ask voters to renew expiring state taxes, so he opted for spending cuts instead. Had an agreement been reached, the district’s $2.3 million structural debt would have been reduced by approximately $1 million, Allen said.  

State legislators approved the $86 billion budget late Tuesday and the governor is expected to sign it Wednesday.

Parents and residents will be able to weigh in on the $25.56 million schools budget and funding for specific programs at a public hearing before the vote. The district has proposed spending $43,000 on an art and music program, for example.

A proposal to amend the district’s three-year agreement with Superintendent Jeffrey Felix will be presented. The new contract contains a number of deferred incentives. Felix is paid $175,000 a year, though he takes mandated furlough days, as do other teachers.

“We think he had done a tremendous job and we want him to stay,” said Bruce Shepherd, the board's president. “It would be extraordinarily destabilizing to our district if he were to leave.”