By Joani Gillam
Executive News Editor
In order to address a $5 million structural budget deficit, the Manhattan Beach Unified School District approved $2 million in expenditure reductions for the 2013-14 school year at the Wednesday board meeting and projected another $7 million in cuts for the following two years.
The multiple expenditure cuts for the 2013-14 school year include the release of approximately 24.6 full-time equivalent positions of temporary certified MBUSD employees.
“We must recommend reductions in positions across the district,” MBUSD Superintendent Dr. Michael Matthews said in an email to MBUSD parents. “These are difficult decisions that will impact valuable employees.”
A full-time equivalent position is equivalent to a teacher that teaches five classes. Four Costa teachers were among the temporary certified employees who will receive notice of leave.
“It’s hard going through cuts three years in a row now,” Costa English teacher Stacy Cabrera said. “As teachers, we start to build relationships with students but these budget cuts remind us that we are seemingly expendable. At the heart of this lies an issue of priorities.”
Cabrera, hired last year, is among the certified staff with the least seniority receiving a pink slip. While not all non-tenured teachers who receive pink slips will be laid off, teachers who receive these notifications will not know if they will retain their jobs at MBUSD until this summer, when the Board has finalized its budget.
“For new teachers, it’s a scary situation,” Costa English teacher Cameron Chow said. “We are all a little nervous, but the cuts are out of our control.”
MBUSD was able to sustain a period in which it was able to avoid furloughs and severe cuts, but with a loss of close to $1 million in federal funds due to sequestration, $2.8 in personnel expenditures, and other areas of overspending, last year’s MBUSD budget ended in deficit.
In addition to the release of the 24.6 full-time equivalent positions, MBUSD also plans to reduce spending with regard to technology, maintenance and supplies.
“MBUSD continues to expend more than the revenue it takes in,” Deputy Superintendent of Administrative Services Dr. Rick Bagley said. “This is due primarily to the fact that State funding has been so drastically reduced since 2007-08. It is welcoming news to hear that State funding will begin to show some improvement in 2013-14, but the improvement is not enough to offset our deficit spending.”
In the 2009-10 school year, MBUSD had to make similar cuts. The $4.5 million in cuts included eliminating 52 employees, enacting monetary restrictions on the Athletics Department, and increasing classroom size.
“We will find ways to move forward,” Bagley said. “We’ve done it before and with continued help and support, we will do it again.”
To address budget cuts in the past, the Manhattan Beach Education Foundation and other support groups have helped MBUSD to lessen the severity of cuts. MBEF plans to meet to discuss grants.
“We anticipate that [the Board] will pink slip more positions than necessary to allow for more discussion,” MBEF Vice President of Grants and Operations Erika White said. “We don’t know now if there will be supplemental spring funding.”
Costa teachers Karl Kurz and Adam Geczi have expressed concerns over the district’s budget plans. Kurz believes that the budget report submitted to Los Angeles County is inconsistent with the budget presented at the Wednesday board meeting. Geczi believes that similar inconsistencies lie in budgeted category “Books and Supplies,” which was exceeded by over $1 million this year.
“I have been denied an answer on increased expenditures in the budget category ‘Books and Supplies,’” Geczi said. “Teachers are being portrayed as scapegoats for the budget deficit after receiving a long-overdue raise.”
No actions will be finalized until the budget is adopted in June. MBUSD board members plan to hold a workshop on March 27 in order to look at outside sources of revenue and try and find ways to lessen the severity of the reductions.
“We will work to find the best solutions, so we can keep providing an exemplary education for students,” Matthews said. “There are a lot of unknowns right now that require further discussion.”
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