The West Contra Costa Unified School District faces the somber prospect of a second state takeover in almost 25 years unless it finds a way to cut $24 million in expenses or is rescued by a California budget brimming with education funds.
Yet the school board didn’t make the budget cutting task any easier despite warnings from district administrators, the Contra Costa County Office of Education and state assessors that the district is on the verge of going bankrupt again.
The board voted 3-2 last month against laying off 200 district employees — about half of them full-time teachers. The layoffs, recommended by both the district and the county’s education office, would have shaved $12.5 million from the projected deficit.
“The district’s finances are built, frankly, on a house of cards,” Michael Fine, CEO of the state’s Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team, said at the board’s March 9 meeting when trustees Jamela Smith-Folds, Otheree Christian and Demetrio Gonzalez-Hoy voted against the layoffs. Trustees Mister Phillips and Leslie Reckler voted to cut the jobs.
Noting that the district’s financial distress has been years in the making, Fine said options to fix the problems are rapidly shrinking. “Board members, you’re not doing your job,” Fine said. “As trustees, you have a fiduciary duty to ensure that your financial condition is stable and is able to support your core mission for students. As the governing board, you are ultimately responsible.”
The state management team was formed by legislators in 1991 after the district — then called Richmond Unified — went bankrupt. The team was tasked with helping the district manage its finances and repay a $28.5 million state loan, which it did in 2012.
Before the school board’s recent decision, several teachers, union leaders and residents urged it to refrain from sending out notices of potential layoffs, as school districts are required to do by March 15 if jobs are on the line. The speakers said such action could prompt already burned-out educators to look elsewhere for jobs, which would further hurt students already far behind in their studies because of the pandemic.
Instead, they urged that the board cut staff and services outside classrooms and called on state legislators to pour more money into the district, which serves roughly 28,000 students at its schools in El Cerrito, Richmond, San Pablo, Pinole and Hercules. About 3,400 students left the district during the pandemic, resulting in a significant loss of state daily attendance funding.
“We are not doing our due diligence when we are still trying to cut close to kids,” Smith-Folds said, rattling off a host of potential impacts on already short-staffed classrooms. “Our integrity cannot be conditional. A budget is a value statement, no matter which side of the fence you’re on. I value people, so my vote is no” to the layoffs.
Robert McEntire, West Contra Costa Unified’s interim chief fiscal official, said in an interview he doesn’t know where else the district can cut $24 million. Even if the district eliminated all its central office administrative positions, as suggested by some board members, that wouldn’t come close to erasing the deficit, he noted.
“We basically have to turn over every rock we can and say, ‘What’s 100 percent essential, legally required and benefits students?’ And if it doesn’t fit those criteria, can we stop doing it?” McEntire said. “I am dying to know what (the unions) see that I don’t.”
McEntire said if Gov. Gavin Newsom delivers on his January promise to allocate more money to school districts in his 2022-23 state budget, that could be a significant help. But the district won’t know for sure if it can count on the money until the end of June, when the Legislature votes on the governor’s budget.
If the additional state handout doesn’t happen and no cuts are made, McEntire said he expects the district to run out of money by October 2023. At that point, the state could take over again.
Nevertheless, McEntire added, “We still have time to right this ship.”
The county office of education will soon assign a fiscal adviser to help district Superintendent Kenneth “Chris” Hurst, who took the job last May, try and figure out which programs, classes and services may have to be cut.
McEntire said a revolving door in the district’s business department over the past six years has contributed to the budget problems. He himself stepped in after associate superintendent of business services Tony Wold left in December, and former superintendent Matthew Duffy also resigned when his contract ended in 2021.
In January 2020, Wold and Duffy were criticized for delaying an announcement that the district’s budget deficit had quadrupled to $40 million. They blamed the delay on a lack of trust in the district’s financial department estimates because of all the turnover.
County Superintendent of Schools Lynn Mackey said the county’s intent in getting involved with the district’s finances isn’t to “take over” but rather to prevent the state from coming in again if possible.
She said the county’s goal is to avoid cutting salaries, eliminating courses and slashing sports programs, which happened when the state entered the picture in the 1990s.
“We are supporting them, we are overseeing some processes, but it is not like it was 25 years ago where we are taking over and imposing a new superintendent or anything,” Mackey said.
The district “is just in a harder spot now than they were because they did not do what they needed to do,” she added.
Source: www.mercurynews.com