At last night’s Board meeting there were about 15 – 20 teachers who showed up to criticize the District and Board for not reaching a salary settlement this year. Several of them spoke passionately about how they believed this state of affairs showed a profound lack of respect for teachers.
I can certainly understand their anger, but we did not get to this place out of a lack of respect. We are being driven to it by events outside of our control.
The State is laboring under a crushing financial crisis, the worst one in many years. It seems like every week the budget shortfall gets bigger. Meanwhile, there has been little progress towards finding a solution in Sacramento. Because education is such a big part of the State budget it will almost certainly suffer significant cuts, even though it is “protected”.
What this means for our District is that we will have substantially less money next year (estimates vary, but we will probably be cut by $900,000 to $1,000,000, which represents about 4 -5 % of our budget). This change in our financial situation was not anticipated when the budget was adopted last year. It would be highly irresponsible for the Board simply to ignore the shift when making decisions today. That is why the teachers and the District have not been able to reach a settlement.
Make no mistake about it, unless a miracle happens really soon, the District is going to begin tapping its reserves. The drain will continue for so long as the State fiscal crisis remains, or unless additional local revenues are authorized through a new or expanded parcel tax. We can’t count on any of that happening…which means we all need to recognize we are on the path to significant program cuts, staff cuts, or takeover by the State at some point in the next few years. Holding those off as long as possible — until the State situation improves and/or we’re able to raise more local money — should be everyone’s goal. However painful the current negotiation situation is, hastening the arrival of really bad outcomes is far worse, for parents, for the community and for teachers.