Taxes and Lack of Money will Weigh on Board Members' Minds at Monday Night Meeting

The Los Altos School Board’s light agenda Monday night is no match for the big items on everyone’s minds—looming budget cuts. With a referendum on state tax extensions not likely to get on a June ballot, the school district needs to look at the reality of cuts and layoffs.

Just last week, districts across the state were hit with the was probably not going to be put to voters this June. Talks had broken down, and Gov. Jerry Brown had announced he had given up meeting with Republicans to negotiate further. Possibilities have included attempting a tax extension referendum in the regular November ballot.

Meanwhile, desperate education activists continue to lobby Republican legislators to go back to negotiations. "What's going on with the state budget is a travesty," said Randall Kenyon, assistant superintendent of business services.

“The new governor comes up with a very rational plan to solve the budget deficit, and legislators are too entrenched in political positions to support it, which hurts all of California,” said Kenyon.

Kenyon will give a financial update Monday night, as well as discuss program priorities and possible reinstatements. But he told Patch that the uncertainty roiling the public education waters was grimmer.

"What's really scary is the prospect of deeper funding cuts than those expected with the failure of state tax extensions. We are hearing talk about possible cuts on the order of $850 to $1,000 per student.  This is almost double what we have envisioned under current worst-case scenarios." 

Right now, the kindergarten-through-eighth-grade district faces an average , for the next four school years.

The measures, programs and specialists on the cutting block right now are employee compensation changes, and cuts in science support specialists, district office staff, maintenance and operations, special education, library program, English language learner program, computer specialists and tech support, music/art program, advanced math program, P.E. specialists, junior high school teacher-in-charge program and junior high school psychologists/counselors. Also under consideration are class-size increases with combo classes and class-size increases with students changing schools.

The cuts ahead are deep, according to Kenyon's proposed budget cuts, because the district was counting on the extension of state taxes. Without that, the district is really hoping for May 3 approval of Measure E, the district's proposed , Covington Elementary School Principal Erin Green said. "Regardless, we're going to have some really tough cuts to make."

The district handed out in order to save money in the budget. Those were only temporary pink slips, as the district has until May 15 to rescind some of those layoff notices, and the board makes a decision on the “final notices,” according to Kenyon.

"We have a great school, and we're committed to providing the best for our kids—all of our kids in Los Altos,” Green said regarding the budget cut options.

One of the five teachers at Covington Elementary School to receive a pink slip in March was fifth-grade teacher Rich Julian, who said Friday he is now “very worried about my job.”

Julian has been a teacher for the past 21 years, but it is his first year in this district.

“I’m at the bottom of the pile. I don’t know when I’ll hear ‘yes’ or ‘no’ about my job here,” Julian said. “There’s going to be cuts to programs, but something’s got to go that’ll least affect instruction.”

Mark Goines, vice president of the school board, said he was not surprised by the delay, as the district is “always uncertain what the state’s plans will be.”

Goines said the approval of Measure E would help the district’s budget well.

For the state tax extension later in the year, using that in the budget, “depends on as a board whether we believe there will be some bridging commitment from the state or they’ll tell us they’ll cut,” Goines said.

The next year will be critical.

“I foresee ways for us to make it through next year if we are hit that hard,” Kenyon said. "But we likely would need to declare a financial emergency and suspend our collective bargaining agreements with employees, exhaust all our reserves and, perhaps, borrow what little money we have left in our capital funds to make it through."

Also on the agenda is discussion of the board’s policy on the open enrollment act transfers and the beginning of the teacher’s association bargaining for the next school year.