The Dublin Unified School District just published the draft budget reductions for next year. For a complete description along with impacts on personnel and plans for reintroduction, please go to the source data.
The reductions have been placed in five groups to aid the Board members in recommending implementation and reinstatement. The State cash flow problems are going to impact the DUSD budget for next year, the question is how much. $2.1 million is a number (after credits for additional revenue and expected staff attrition) that has frequently appeared in the last few weeks. Therefore, the Board will probably be forced to choose at least four of the five groups presented below and may want to adopt all five to allow for uncertainty in the State budget process. It does appear that for the most part the District listened to parents and did not recommend huge cuts to sports, music (with the exception of band), or art.
However K-3 and 9th grade class size reduction was not as fortunate. Group 2 will increase class sizes for Kindergarten to 21 and Grades 1-3 and 9 to almost 25. Group 5 reductions will increase all these class sizes to 28 (except Grades 1&9).
Negotiations with the represented staff will need to take place before all of the reductions can be implemented. The reduction of days for leadership, classified, and certificated staff will probably be slightly less than normal step and column increases per the certificated contract. For example a teacher with 5 years of experience without a master’s degree is scheduled to get a 3.2% raise next year. The reduction of three staff development days will reduce their total pay by 1.6%. Even with reductions, staff will get a modest increase.
Draft Budget Reductions for 2009/2010 School Year
Group 1
Leadership Position $137,020
Teachers on Special Assignment for Schools under 600 $38,800
AP at High School – Temporary Transfer to Facilities $130,575
Expand Team Cleaning $56,329
Economic Impact Aide Teacher (ELD) $75,000
TV TIP Reduction $40,567
Reduction in Certificated Substitute Rates $30,000
Reduction in Classified Substitute Rates $10,000
Athletic Program Reduction $30,000
4th Grade Band $80,662
Group 1 Total $628,953
Group 2
One Staff Development Day $148,000
Reduction of One Day (Leadership) $17,000
Reduction of One Day (Classified) $25,000
Library Media Aides at all schools – 4 hours $171,838
Class Size Modification (K<21, 1-3<25) $300,000
Class Size Modification – (9th grade <25) $90,000
Group 2 Total $751,838
Group 3
One Staff Development Day $148,000
Reduction of One Day (Leadership) $17,000
Reduction of One Day (Classified) $25,000
Counselors Grades 6-8 (At Risk) $62,457
Group 3 Total $252,457
Group 4
Staff Development Day $148,000
One Reduction of One Day (Leadership) $17,000
Reduction of One Day (Classified) $25,000
Group 4 Total $190,000
Group 5
Elimination of Kindergarten CSR- 537 students Class to 28 $287,63
Elimination of Third Grade CSR- 497 students Class to 28 $266,143
Elimination of Second Grade CSR- 501 students Class to 28 $266,143
Group 5 Total $819,921
Grand Total $2,643,169
The draft proposal may use $870,000 of the recently approved Parcel Tax to fund the annual shortfall in funding for class size reduction and $200,000 for other programs.
The primary issue is the District’s lack of gaining knowledge from the budget reduction process last year. Many parents were bothered by the lack of transparency in the process. The closure of Nielsen led to several complaints about DUSDs handling of the issue; concerns were raised about the rollout of a plan without much opportunity to consider any other options.
A similar process is being used this year. The District provided the five Board members with the above recommendations last Friday. They did not post the recommendations for public viewing until late Monday afternoon (for a meeting the next evening). Several Board members had expressed concern regarding not having enough time to consider the budget cuts if they did not receive the recommendations until the day before the meeting. Apparently, the parents and many other members of our community do not require this extra time.
Most of the Board members have expressed issues with communication with the community and many of the newly elected members made campaign promises to not repeat the issues with the Nielsen closure last year.
DUSD will point out that they met the letter of the law for noticing of a “special meeting” (only 24 hour posting is required). The reduction in normal meeting posting is for information that is quickly changing and where it would be difficult to make the 72-hour requirements. In this case the District was able to provide the information on Friday, except to the public. I was led to believe that the District was planning to improve communications.
