Faced with a budget-cutting directive on the one hand and a chopping block on the other, the suddenly aromatic, but decidedly somber, School Board played executioner at last night’s meeting.
They agreed, temporarily, to keep their happy hands off previously acknowledged Look But Don’t Touch issues such as:
Makeup of the school security staff,
The School District public relations position, and
The School District website.
Actually, the Board directed Supt. Dr. Myrna Rivera Cote to sit down with public relations consultant Geoff Maleman to negotiate a 5 percent reduction in his annual $40,000 fee. The position could have been eliminated.
Another “no” vote of interest was the Budget Secretary, who is based at Culver City High School. She came to the meeting to plead for her job. Her feistiness was duly rewarded. But Board members said no one else should try to emulate her this spring because such a gambit probably will not work a second time.
The Board emphasized that of the 22 line items that drew “no” votes, no affected party should exhale very fast. The reprieves are temporary. At the least, each subject will be revisited, and possibly the Tuesday night verdict will be reversed.
Nobody Knows
It is not known when the next Board vote on cuts will be scheduled.
In recent weeks, the 11-person school security staff has become just about the most sensitive item on the list. At the present, no staffer is expected to lose his job, but staff assignments are to be dramatically revamped.
On the way to authorizing 50 percent of the presumed but not yet officially mandated $3.5 million in cutbacks, the four present School Board members all thought similarly if not identically. (Steve Gourley was out of town on business.)
With the slightly revised Board abandoning its querulous pre-election ways, President Dr. Dana Russell established a low-key, tidy, businesslike mood in the Board Room at School District headquarters.
With military, no-nonsense efficiency, Dr. Russell led the surprisingly collegial members through line-by-line yes or no decisions on 68 cuts prioritized cuts, saying “yes” 46 times.
The list was intricately weighted and prepared by the citizens’ Community Budget Advisory Committee, which engineered several revisions.
Implementation Date
Asst. Supt. David El Fattal said this first round of cuts — dictated by huge and still not finalized slashes in funding from the office of Gov. Schwarzenegger — will be implemented by July 1.
The evening on Irving Place was overcast for more than one reason. It is not clear precisely how much more cutting will be required.
Notably, Board members Dr. Jessica Beagles-Roos and Scott Zeidman made repeated references to the heavy-heartedness that saddled their minds throughout what they described as an odious but unavoidable chore.
Acting before the kind of packed house that is predictable when an execution is scheduled, the School Board repeatedly blinked as it proceeded, line by line, through 68 recommended cuts or reductions.
Steadfastly, the Board mostly fulfilled promises it had made to affected employees and the community in recent days.
They approved deletion of teacher and principal positions for personnel who are required by law to receive notification of their impending dismissals prior to March 15.
