As Governor Jerry Brown proposes a fiscally sound budget for next year, the Manhattan Beach Unified School District must also do the same. While MBUSD is awaiting some key budgetary decisions from the state, MBUSD will be receiving extra funding regardless of the state’s decisions due to Proposition 30. The district, therefore, needs to create a more specific plan in addition to existing plans for reserve funds to address the inevitable new revenue.
Governor Brown’s budget proposals highlight an increase to education funding as a result of the passage of Prop. 30. Brown’s new “Local Control Funding Formula” plans to direct more funding from Prop 30 to schools with greater challenges, such as large numbers of students with low incomes or a significant percentage of English as a Second Language students. According to social science teacher and MBUTA negotiations chair Adam Geczi, while MBUSD may not receive as much money as other districts in education funding, it will still see a revenue increase.
While this may not be as ideal of a situation for MBUSD schools, Brown’s proposal has merit. There are many schools in California with minimal resources that are in need of support. These schools do not have any organization similar to the Manhattan Beach Education Foundation, and they have no way of coming up with funding on their own. Although it may be unfortunate for those in Manhattan Beach, on a state level Brown is obviously making the right choice.
With this in mind, MBUSD must craft a budget factoring in the increase in funds, however much. Because MBUSD always prepares its budget for the worst-case scenario, there is usually an excess in funding that the district puts into its reserves. Last year, the district adopted a budget with $52,321,514 in revenue, but actually received $54,629,374, therefore leaving a $2,307,860 surplus, according to district budget reports. Since the budget didn’t include this excess of funds, MBUSD was able to allocate this revenue however it wanted with little regulation.
In light of the previous conflicts regarding teacher contracts and the increase in technology implementation, money must be spent to meet the increasing costs.
Ideally, 20% of any excess should be directed toward teacher pay which would be added on to any contractual pay increases. Ten percent of these funds should go toward sustaining technology to account for the widespread increase of the iPad Pilot Program and Wi-Fi project in addition to covering the costs of technology mishaps. According to Bagley, money may need to be allotted toward increasing security in light of recent events such as the Sandy Hook tragedy and, thus, 5% of the revenue should be allotted toward security costs. The extra 65% of revenue should be put into reserves for future unforeseen costs.
Overall, MBUSD must be cautious when crafting the 2013-14 budget. It must remain conservative in spending until state funding is known. However, a specific plan for the inevitable excess in revenue must be created before funding is even known.
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