The School Board holds its regular meeting tonight at 7 at District
Headquarters, 4034 Irving Pl.
Here are two perspectives on the School Board’s first round of budget cuts executed at their last meeting two weeks ago:
“We did what we had to do,” said six-year Board veteran Saundra Davis. “But, if we find money, and with a little maneuvering, we will be able to bring back some people.”
Based on the Board’s recent history, that seems likely to happen, School District officials indicated.
First-year School Board member Scott Zeidman said that “parents in the community should feel as if their government is doing them a disservice” in view of Gov. Schwarzenegger’s proposed funding reductions for all school districts in the state.
“This 10 percent across-the-board cuts makes no sense whatsoever,” Mr. Zeidman said.
“Parents should be upset and they should be angry at our governor more than anyone or anything else. The governor’s proposed 10 percent across-the-board cut for everything, including education, is a disservice to every youth in the city, in the state, every parent in the state, every community member in the state.
Unequal Is the Correct Approach
“You can’t treat every program equally. There is not enough fat in the school budget to cut 10 percent. What the governor is doing by cutting across-the-board should be criminal.
“We are disappointed that we have to cut somewhere in the neighborhood of $3.5 million from a budget that does not have $3.5 million to cut.”
Noticeably zealous in his opening months on the School Board, Mr. Zeidman said that “I can’t tell you how many hours we have been spending determining what is best to do. We are taking this very seriously.
“Frankly, there is virtually nothing that could be cut. Yet, we don’t have that option.”
Question: Granting there are no easy or obvious cuts, where or how much could you eliminate without creating a heavy heart?
“ That is difficult to say, and I will explain why. We are cutting teachers based on enrollment projections. It would be easy to cut teachers if enrollment were down.
“(At the last School Board meeting) we cut somewher in the neighborhood of $900,000 in teacher salaries, benefits, etc. If enrollment is as it is projected to be, that would be 15 teachers out the door.
“However, it is not exactly cutting 15 teachers because, of all our teachers, we are likely to have a good number retiring anyhow.
“So in this case, based on projected enrollment, we are not going to be saying to Ms. Smith, ‘Thanks for all your years. You are history.’
“The 15 spaces we are removing don’t necessarily mean 15 people are losing their jobs. It may mean that we don’t hire 10 teachers to replace 10 who would retire.
“How much could we cut? Hard to say. The Business, office, the Human Resource Office, the Superintendent’s office are all saying they might be able to do 5 percent from their budget. If we do that, we are looking at $150,000. Is it do-able? We don’t know right now. But we are demanding they do it. They have got an edict. They have to do it.”
Question: There seem to be three main protected areas at the moment, public relations, the School District website and school security. Are they safe?
“Public relations is protected right now. What’s going to happen later, I don’t know. Right now we’d like to keep it. But I can’t tell you what is going to happen in the next round.
“The website — we need to communicate with the public. We need to do it via the website. We are not ready to have students come in and run the website (as some persons have suggested).
“What I would like to do with (the suggestion of Teachers Union President David Mielke) is for the students do a mock website. Then have them maintain it for a year. We can check it and see how well they do. If it turns out they are able to do it, then we will have to revisit it. But it doesn’t make any sense to do it until it has been proven it can be done.
Turning to the Experts
“As for school security — who are the experts in our city? The answer has got to be the Police Dept. I met with Chief (Don) Pedersen (and two others), and they made it pretty clear we not only need to keep security as it is, but to keep the head of security.
“When I met with both principals Pam Magee (Culver City High School) and Jerry Kosch (Middle School), they made it clear they didn’t want to lose any security.
“California has the most school violence in the country. Yet ours has been dropping every year for the last five. Let’s keep it that way.
“There is no reason to cut security.
“However, we have security working after-hours, until 2 in the morning. I would love to guard the facilities 24/7 to avoid graffiti and avoid vandalism.
“But when we have to cut $3.5 million, it is much more important to have security when the kids are around instead of just protecting property.
“So we are going to revam the way security does things, and change the hours. If we do it right, I am more than confident we can keep the same number of security guards on campus, while the kids are around and still cut $75,000 to $100,000 from the budget.”
About the Director
Mr. Zeidman said the job of the director of school security seems secure, but with a caveat.
“We don’t necessarily need the director all the time,” he said. “We have to look at how we can revamp the (schedules of) the security force, and the director, and best utilize them.”
