LAUSD PRESENTS ONE-YEAR BUDGET PROPOSAL: The one-year plan could save 80 percent of expected layoffs + smf's 2¢

LAUSD Office of Communications & Media Relations News Release | http://bit.ly/gdCQ5l

April 12, 2011 - Los Angeles – A one-year budget proposal was presented to the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) Board of Education today that would preserve many school programs and save thousands of jobs as the District attempts to find ways to address its $408 million deficit as the deadline to rescind layoff notices to employees draws near.

The one-year temporary proposal, drafted by Superintendent-elect Dr. John Deasy, is a solution to stabilize LAUSD for the upcoming 2011-12 school year when the District faces the prospect of laying off up to 5,000 teachers and support staff, and thousands of classified personnel.

“This is a tourniquet to stop the bleeding; it’s not a Band-Aid anymore,” said Dr. Deasy. “We need to stabilize the District one year at a time.”

After budget negotiations broke down earlier this month in Sacramento, in which Governor Jerry Brown had lobbied to allow voters to decide whether to extend current vehicle, sales and income taxes that, if passed, could have reduced the District’s deficit by nearly half, school board members asked Dr. Deasy to create a new budget plan to find other alternative savings.

“Besides saving LAUSD, it’s about saving public education in California,” said Los Angeles Board of Education Member Nury Martinez. “Public education is never funded the way it should be.”

In fact, based on historical data, LAUSD is due to receive attendance-based funding from the State for the 2011-12 school year that, when adjusted for inflation, is similar to what the District received in 1999.

The one-year plan would be a starting point for discussions with the District’s labor partners in asking employee unions to agree to 12 “furlough” days, which would add up to an estimated savings of up to $168 million. The plan would also temporarily “borrow” $127 million from LAUSD’s Health and Welfare Fund, which currently maintains reserves.

In return, the plan would roll back proposed class size increases to K-8 classes, and save school programs including those that support the arts, magnet schools, after-school activities and early education.

The potential savings would be significant as the proposal could save up to 80 percent of expected layoffs. This means saving the jobs of teachers, counselors and school-based administrators, campus aides, nurses and librarians.

However, time is fast approaching to act on this plan and the District must work together with labor partners to have sufficient time to rescind layoff notices to employees, according to District officials.

“If we want to rescind these notices and give people peace, we have to get this done by May 1,” said Dr. Deasy. “And I believe we can do that.”

Board of Education Vice President Dr. Richard Vladovic echoed the need for urgency, saying the LAUSD doesn’t “have the luxury of time.”

“If it takes us 24-hours a day, we will meet. If that’s what it takes to save our employees and children, then that’s what we’ll do,” Dr. Vladovic said.

 

smf: Though advertised as such, this is no budget. It's an opening negotiating position by management in a labor contract. A gambit - presented as a 'take-it-or-leave-it,”, last-and-best offer with an arbitrary  deadline a couple of weeks off.  This is no way to run a business or a contract negotiation or a school district.

First off - Mayor Tony's ‘A New Contract®’ notwithstanding - the Union Contract is not the governing document of the District. A school district's constitution is the Ed Code, the script is Board Policy and the budget is - well - The Budget. The health and safety of kids and employees is paramount and positive educational outcomes are the goals. Collective bargaining becomes part of glue that holds the process together, along with good will and shared vision.

The mayor has been on (or perhaps off) of late about the size of the contract: "It's the size of a phonebook!" he says. Charter operators and their friends want a "thin contract" …as if the svelteness of the binder matters.

You can never be too to rich or too thin," the Duchess of Windsor is said to have said. She was rich and she was thin. And shallow.

Nothing is more constraining and inflexible than a short laundry list of hard-and-fast rules; "Thou shalt not", "You always must", "It is written and so it shall be".

First we need to agree that if kids are the first priority everyone else can't have everything else they want. If we cannot agree on that let's declare bankruptcy and invite the Fiscal Crisis & Management Assistance Team in . Here's the online wizard/signup form.

What we need is an agreement on what it is we wish to do and an understanding that we will work together in good faith towards those ends. We don't have the time, money or latitude to do it any other way. THAT is a contract that will empower teachers and administrators and boardmembers and parents and citizens - and the mayor of the city who serves us. And the mayors, city managers, supervisors and parents, voters and taxpayers of the other 25 jurisdictions of LAUSD.

Though the only empowerment that really matters is how education empowers young people.