I haven’t gotten the materials to be presented by staff at next Tuesday’s Board meeting on addressing the fiscal crisis yet. But I do have the original list of programs and activities staff suggested be evaluated a few weeks ago.
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Addressing the Budget Crisis
Next Tuesday, January 20th, staff will begin its presentation on the cost saving and educational impact of various alternative budget cuts and revenue enhancement opportunities. I’ll post more information on what will be evaluated over the next few days.
This meeting will begin the most important activity the Board will undertake this year, determining how to respond to the unprecedented State financial crisis that is putting all of public education in California at risk.
It is very important that everyone with any interest in education in San Carlos keep abreast of what takes place at this and subsequent meetings on the topic. Please help spread the word, and please consider attending. To that end, I’ve added a “share/save” link to my blog that should make it easier to email or IM any entry to your friends and family.
The meeting will be held in the Central multi-use room, aka the “old gym”, starting at 7:30 PM. Please note that the District website may not have the correct location information for this meeting. What I’ve posted is the official word.
Posted in budget, crisis, money
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The House Is On Fire
At this past Thursday’s Board meeting we reviewed the updated financials for the next three years.
It’s bad. Very bad.
I was on the Board during the District’s “financial crisis” in the 2002-2003 school year. That crisis was essentially home-grown; the State budget was not collapsing. We avoided major cuts — the kind of cuts that would have severely damaged the nature and quality of education in San Carlos — only through a massive expansion of the San Carlos Educational Foundation, the passage of a parcel tax, and by accepting a number of smaller cuts.
This time is worse.
As in, there are reasonable scenarios that have the District out of money by the end of the 2009/2010 school year. Just 18 months from now.
And even in the “better” scenarios we are out of business in a few years.
Unless some significant changes take place.
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Eric Von der Porten, RIP
I’ve been putting off writing this entry because, well, because I never would have thought in a million years that I would need to write it.
Eric passed away last Tuesday.
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Measure S: Voting Oddities Redux
The Elections Office has an explanation for the apparent undercount in precinct 3626 which I wrote about in an earlier post.
Apparently, they merged two precincts — 3626 and 3631 — into one “temporary” precinct for this particular election. Precinct 3631 is part of the Belmont – Redwood Shores School District. Voters from 3631 would, of course, not be eligible to vote on Measure S.
Unfortunately, they opted to rename the combined precinct…3626. Which, as I pointed out to them in an email, is a foolish thing to do, as it throws away valuable information (i.e., where the votes are coming from) and creates unnecessary confusion.
FYI, before accepting this explanation I verified it through a third party. That’s because the first two explanations I got back from the Elections Office were obviously incorrect.
Still no word on the other oddities that I described.
Posted in parcel tax
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Measure S: Why Did It Fail?
So, after sharing such information as is currently available on what happened, and writing about some odd things that took place on Election Day, it’s time for the main event: trying to answer the question “Why did Measure S fail?”
I say “try” because I’ve heard roughly twice as many explanations as people offering them 🙂 . There is some degree of overlap, but not all that much.
Posted in parcel tax
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Measure S: Voting Oddities
I mentioned in an earlier post on voting patterns that one precinct, 3626, had an unusually low level of voter turnout compared to the rest of the precincts that voted on Measure S. This is the precinct that covers most of the hilltop area starting where Club Drive and Crestview Drive intersect.
Posted in parcel tax
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Measure S: Voting Patterns
While the election hasn’t been officially certified yet, it looks likely Measure S will end up failing. It didn’t miss by much — the latest count shows it getting 65.5% of the vote — but there are probably so few votes left to count that it’d be a stunning turnaround for it to end up passing.
Which naturally raises the question “How did this happen?”
But before we get into that, it’s worth looking at how votes were cast. I’ve looked at the current, near-final results in a number of different ways, and the most intuitive one I’ve come up with is to look at what I call the Net Yes vote.
Posted in parcel tax
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Demographic Report
The Board will be discussing the results of a demographic study tonight. You can view a PDF of the report here.
Posted in capacity, enrollment
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Op Ed Piece on the County Pool Fund
The title pretty much says it all. You can find the article I wrote (which was published in the San Mateo Daily Journal) here.
Posted in budget, money
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