This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Politics & Government

School Budget Plan Staves Off Cuts for a Year

District will still need to make $5 million in cuts for 2012-2013 school year.

The Pasadena Unified School District Board on Tuesday gave its initial approval to a revised budget plan that will stave off some of the deeper cuts that have been discussed this year in the wake of declining attendance and state funding.

This latest set of budget recommendations uses a combination of one-time spending from Federal Jobs grant money and reallocation of facilities improvement dollars, along with cuts to staff, security, technology and some educational programs to reduce deficit spending by just under $4 million for the 2011-2012 school year.

PUSD Chief Finance Officer John Pappalardo, who presented the budget recommendations to the Board, started with some good news on the state-funding front. 

Find out what's happening in Sierra Madrewith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Based on a May revision of the projected cuts in per-student spending, Pappalardo said the numbers were not quite as bad as they had been before the latest revision.

“We’re now celebrating a flat funding which is somewhere around $1,200 below what they actually owe us," said John Pappalardo. “So, a little bit there, calls for a celebration. … We’re not being decimated as much as we thought.”

Find out what's happening in Sierra Madrewith free, real-time updates from Patch.

The other bit of good news at Tuesday’s meeting was that the Board’s Finance Subcommittee had crafted a plan to retain seven full-time librarian positions as well as funding for block scheduling programs.

The district had initially planned to eliminate the positions and programs, but through the use of $1.4 million in Federal Jobs grant money, it appears they will be able to offset those layoffs and rescind pinks slips before the end of the school year.

Nevertheless, the one-time allocation of grant funds does nothing to addresses the structural deficit in the PUSD. It is a move that Pappalardo said “saves us from having to make the cuts [now], but we will have to make them sometime down the line.”

Board Member Ed Honowitz, in an effort to clarify what Pappalardo was presenting, offered his interpretation of the plan in a way quite similar to Pappalardo’s phrasing.

“We’re not solving the problem, we’re just pushing it out,” Honowitz said. “Because of one time funding, we’re not instituting some of the worst cuts, at least not this year.”

In addition to the Federal Job grant money, around $2 million from the District’s “Fund 40”–monies typically earmarked for facilities maintenance and improvement–will be reallocated towards the general fund budget gap.

While these one-time revenues are expected to reduce deficit spending for the 2011-2012 school year from more than $7 million to around $3 million, the projected gap for the 2012-2013 school year still sits at more than $6.5 million.

With that number amounting to nearly half of the projected general fund balance for that year, Pappalardo said it is “estimated that we will need to reduce out budget for 13-14 by about $5 million."

Cuts that will be made to the PUSD budget for the 2011-2012 school year include the elimination of 10 full-time employees in the District’s central office, nine full-time custodial employees and a significant reduction of district-issued cell phones for employees, among other cuts.

Additionally, the District will save around $1.3 million through the elimination of employees at two Altadena elementary schools that will be closed, as well as an expected continued decline in student enrollment, which saves the District money by allowing adjustment in staffing ratios.

The budget as reviewed at Tuesday night’s special meeting is expected to be officially approved during the next regular meeting of the PUSD Board on June 28.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?

More from Sierra Madre