Girls Flag Football Celebrated
Board Leadership Unchanged
Director of Community Resolution & Outreach Position Approved
Interim Budget Approved
Streamlined Board Governance Handbook Discussed
Girls Flag Football Celebrated
This year celebrates Girls Flag Football as an official high school competitive sport, and each of our four large high schools fielded a team. A student representative from each team spoke briefly to the Board about what it was like to play Flag Football and what the experience meant to them. It was truly a joy to hear these young women speak.
Board Leadership Unchanged
Every December the School Board elects its President, Vice President, and Clerk from among its five Board members to serve a 1-year term. Some Boards rotate the positions each year, but our Board has always run a formal election.
The exercise of electing officers can be somewhat predictable based on how the Board generally votes, but to my genuine surprise, Trustee Phan Anderson nominated me to be President and had some very kind words to say. Rimga Viskanta was also nominated and was reelected to the position of Board President.
Trustee Anderson nominated herself for Vice President, and I asked Trustees Viskanta, Smith, and Young to vote for Trustee Anderson as a show of Board unity and compromise. However, the vote to elect Phan Anderson failed 2-3. Trustee Smith was then reelected as Vice President.
Trustee Young ran unopposed and was elected as Board Clerk.
A video of this part of the meeting can be found here: Election of Board Officers
Director of Community Resolution & Outreach Position Approved
In what I believe to be an important decision, the Board voted to create a new staff position called the Director of Community Resolution & Outreach. I sponsored the creation of this position nearly two years ago, and despite it being approved by the Board at that time, the Board’s decision was never implemented.
The job description for the new role can be found here, but in summary this person will act as a single point of contact for parents, students, and other community members who need special assistance in handling issues with the District. I have used the term “Ombudsman” or “Ombudsperson” in the past when describing this role to indicate that this is someone a parent, student, or community member can go to when they need special assistance, if they have a complaint, or a question. It can be frustrating when dealing with a complicated or unfamiliar organization, and parents and others often don’t know who to even ask about how the process works when they have an issue. Everyone will now have a neutral resource who can help them.
This will be a challenging role, but if managed and staffed properly, could be a large benefit to our District. I want to thank Superintendent Staffieri for implementing this new position.
See a news article here: Director of Community Resolution and Outreach
Interim Budget Approved
District staff presented an updated budget, the “First Interim Budget”, outlining the District’s financial forecast for this school year and the next two years.
The updated budget showed an unrestricted funds budget deficit of ($4.3 million), which is about 2.9% of our unrestricted annual expenditures. We fund this deficit by drawing down our financial reserves (essentially our available “money in the bank”). We started the year with about 11.3% of annual expenses in reserves, and with a 2.9% deficit the budget now shows an ending reserve for this school year of 8.5%.
This reserve is too low. Our Board policy is to run budget surpluses until we reach a target of 18% reserves, and we are going in the wrong direction.
Also an issue is that the updated budget does not include the impact of any raises to our teachers. We are in negotiations with the teacher’s union now, and any pay increase will be retroactive to July 1, 2023.
The following school year (2024/25) will also be tight financially, and any pay increases we provide will likely cause a deficit in that year as well.
One final point to make is that the finances of the State of California are a disaster, with gigantic budget deficits forecasted. The 2022-23 budget was a $26 Billion deficit, and the forecast for the next two years are deficits totaling $68 Billion. In just three years the state will have lost about $94 Billion! There are only 13 million households in California, so this is equal to a loss of about $7,200 for every household in California.
California Budget and Education
We will likely be looking at much lower increases in school funding next year. We will know more in January, but spending on education might increase only about 1%, or perhaps even 0%.
If you are feeling that I am nervous about our finances, you are right. We simply must find a way to live within our means.
Streamlined Board Governance Handbook Discussed
Our Board has been struggling on agreement to some basic governance processes, and for over a year have been operating without an agreed governance handbook.
A board committee of Jane Lea Smith and myself created an updated handbook, and the entire board discussed it at this Board meeting. I want to thank Trustee Smith for negotiating in good faith with me, and I was happy that the Board did not have substantive comments to our recommendations. Superintendent Staffieri will now identify which Board Policies need to be changed to be consistent with our new handbook, and I expect our Board will adopt the handbook and new policies at the January Board meeting.
Happy Holidays and I hope you enjoy time with friends and family.