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Paso schools face budget woes, teacher strike

February 5, 2012

By DANIEL BLACKBURN

An unexplained $1.59 million deficit in Paso Robles School District’s (PRSD) current budget has the district teetering on the brink of insolvency and under threat of a state takeover while local officials target teachers’ pay as a possible solution.

In response, teachers are now threatening to strike, and plan a rally Tuesday at the board’s 6 p.m. meeting at district headquarters, 800 Niblick Road, Paso Robles.

District officials have blamed the shortfall in its $54 million spending plan on a bookkeeping error made by a retired employee, and have posed fixes for the problem which include an immediate three percent salary hit, and similar, subsequent annual cuts.

Several sources told CalCoastNews that the “missing” money appeared to have been taken from a fund for employee insurance, provided by Self Insured Schools of California (SISC), and then used for other general purposes, but never repaid. SISC is a joint powers agreement administered by the Kern County Superintendent of Schools Office, and participated in by districts from throughout the state.

County School Superintendent Julian Crocker, whose office exercises oversight of individual districts in the county, said he “appointed a fiscal advisor to work with the district” in December and has offered additional staff assistance to the district.

Crocker said “the law prescribes county superintendents lots of ways to act” in these kinds of crisis situations, and acknowledged he has “serious concerns” regarding PRSD’s recent “negative declaration” of its fiscal standing — meaning that officials are uncertain about their ability to pay ongoing bills for the rest of the budget year.

Ironically, Crocker now oversees problems in the district he once headed.

Teachers union president Jim Lynett told the PRSC board of trustees in an “open letter” in January  that a cut in wages for teachers was not acceptable to his membership.

“We are prepared to sit down and negotiate a solution for next year utilizing the many cost savings ideas presented to the board by the community,” he said. Lynett said that when his members offered their compromise recently, “We were dismissed like children.”

Robert Skinner, a history teacher and officer in the teachers’ association, said that a compromise with the district “would require cooperation, and (of that) I’m not too hopeful. After all, the school board is relying on the judgment of the same administrators who got them into this mess in the first place.” Skinner said teachers may be left with only two options: accept the cut in pay, or strike.

Lynett also suggested that the district’s current budget fix may cause school classes to end as early as April.

The county education office “tried to warn the district about this game-changing screw up,” said Lynett, but those warnings went unheeded.

Dr. Kathy McNamara, superintendent of the Paso Robles district, did not returns calls Friday from a reporter.  But in an email to the teachers’ union, McNamara wrote, “The SLOCOE (county’s) fiscal adviser would not approve (the union) proposal as it did not address the mandates set forth by the county superintendent to restore our fund balance, and eliminate deficit spending.”

If the Paso Robles district was to be placed under state receivership, the current superintendent would be fired, the board would become advisory only, and state loans would be made to cover deficits. Such receivership would last a minimum of three years.


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LOL,,,here’s one from left field.


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The system needs to be taken over. Fire all the administrators right down to the school level. Rehire those of proven competence and need at a reasonable salary (say at most +20-30% of a teaching salary to reflect their longer work year). Likewise, fire under-performing teachers and rehire young, ambitious and hardworking new teachers.


But that’s only half of the bargain.


The other half is that we as tax payers have to commit to funding a first rate education system and not letting its budget yo-yo up and down. Small class sizes. Paying GOOD teachers enough to make them take a job and stay in it (and not take another job in the evenings and weekend to make ends meet). First class facilities.


Education is too important to get wrong.


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“The system needs to be taken over.”


You are quite right. But taken over by what?


Who will “Fire all the administrators”?


Only a free market and consumers who run it will get these things done.


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But taken over by what? Hello Kitty!


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People. Get a clue. We’re broke. We should be in bankruptcy.


I’ve been harping on this every chance I get for years now. CA and every county and every city and every district and every department and every everything else CA gov-in-mint related is grossly upside down and has been since at least 2008.


In reality our CA government agencies have been living in fantasy land for about two decades, spending more and more every year while revenues stayed the same or even decreased over the last 5 years. Do you even remember how we kicked out Gray Davis because he was 8 billion upside down and we put Arnold in because he was going to balance things? Now, we’re something like 35 billion upside down. Way to go Arnold and team. Good thing you cleaned up that problem right?


Then Brown gets in and has the legislature flat out lie about projected revenues to come up with a balanced budget. Everyone knew day one those revenues were overstated by the multiple billions!


Now, CA is about to go cash broke in less than one month. We need something like 2 billion cash or we’re issuing IOUs. Think we can find 2 billion cash in a month? Remember, Ca can’t print money like the U.S. govinmint. Face reality. We’re bk. It is what it is.


Of course, the answer has always been staring us in the face–an across the board 10% cut in every single govinmint department state wide. But, of course, everyone wanted to point fingers and nobody wanted to take their cuts. Now, it’s too late.


We are where are. It is what it is. Deal with it.


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If we were talking about a company and not a school district, would we penalize the workers or fire the accountant/manager?


The school district’s assistant superintendent of such-and-such, along with the superintendent and probably school board made a very bad decision(s) resulting in a deficit of $1.59 MILLION dollars. How in the world can the teachers be blamed for THAT?


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I don’t think I read the teachers were being blamed for the mistake. Although, they are being asked to pay for it. It would be hard to fire the person who made the error as the article said they were retired.


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Take their pension. They made the “mistake,” they need to be held financially accountable.


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Superintendent McNamara and other assistant superintendents are also responsible for the budget and they are still on the job.


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“California (per student) education funding is AT THE BOTTON (49 or 50/ 50 states)”


“Ranking” is the favorite statistical lie employed by our so-called educators (and every other bureaucratic, union and political entity) No amount of money is ever enough. Per student funding in this state is on the order of $10K/yr/pupil. Most of this money is lost between Sacramento and the local district offices, and the classrooms are left with nothing. It is testament to the educrat industry that their products (our high-school graduate citizens with limited critical-thinking skills) buy into their bogus arguments for ever more taxx-monies even as reading, writing and math scores remain abysmal and ‘bonehead’ courses are the norm for first-year college students. The contrast is especially stark when compared internationally to students graduated at age 16 fully prepped for college.


You people are lucky to have jobs, your benefits and retirement packages are above those of the private sector and you consider the taxpayors a limitless piggy-bank to fund your benefits and Democrat polical stooges.


btw, I’ve been in the classroom, I know what it takes and I know political indoctrination when I see it.


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02/05/2012 at 8:25 pm


3 Questions (since this quote was mine.)


“California (per student) education funding is AT THE BOTTON (49 or 50/ 50 states)”


Q-1 Whay are you so angry (seriously?)


Q-2 Please cite the source of your “statistic”


“Per student funding in this state is on the order of $10K/yr/pupil.”


“There’s Lies, Damn lies and Statiostics” — Mark Twain


By the way, if it is really is this number, and if, as you say “Most of this money is lost between Sacramento and the local district offices, and the classrooms are left with nothing.” Again, if this really is true, then I think that you have a right to be pissed off (I sure am) but I sense that this is not your major point.


Q-3 Re: ” btw, I’ve been in the classroom, I know what it takes and I know political indoctrination when I see it.”


When and how were you “In the classroom?” As a teacher, board member, volunteer, Administrator?

Why did you leave? Have you heard this one?

“If you can, you do. If you can’t, you teach. If you REALLY can’t, you leave the classroom.”


BTW, did you know that local CTA union representatives have chosen to support by saying “We recommend that you vote for …” for more Republican state Legislators than Democrats for a very many years?


“Damn those teachers. They Just don’t work hard enough!”


Yeah, Right.


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Have you heard this one?

“If you can, you do. If you can’t, you teach. If you REALLY can’t, you leave the classroom.”


“Damn those teachers. They Just don’t work hard enough!” Yeah, right.

_____


A non-sequitur ad hominem buttressed with a falsely-attributed statement. The is par for the educrat lobby. They understand only, “more money,” and become enraged when it is suggested they improve their mediocre products (ill-educated graduates) or give the parents the money to make their own choices.


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Actually, it’s “Those who can, teach. Those who can’t teach, teach the teachers. Those who can’t teach the teachers become administrators.


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This is exactly why the public schools should be privatized. That is the ONLY way to inject fiscal discipline and rationality into them. We will ALWAYS have this problem as long as government runs the schools.


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There is a big difference between “privatizing” and “politicising” which is what most “privatizing” schemes seem to look like. In this political clmate, do you really think that this is possible (please asume that these “private” schools must meet the same “educate all regardless” standards that the current “public system” do now.)


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I think you are a little confused here. I strongly agree that “politics” has no place in schools. But “politics” is what you get when you have a government run your schools. It goes with the territory and is the nature of the beast.


Free market schools would have to make a profit, and respond to market forces, to customer demands, and to rationality, or go out of business. They would not be able to beg for “bailouts” from the taxpayers, teachers, etc., as this unfortunate, pitiful, school district is about to do.


I repeat, where did the money go?


In a public school, this is EVERYBODY’S problem!


In a private school, this is only THEIR problem!


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We have always had public schools but haven’t always had this problem.


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A government of the people by the people shall not perish.. “


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I read that the school districts should pay no more than 85% of its budget toward salaries. Paso is paying around 91% leaving 9% to pay for expeditures (supplies, utilities, insurance, equipment, etc.). You cannot run a business like this. The teachers need to compromise as the rest of us have done on our jobs. I lost sick leave, half of my vacation time, a good health insurance policy for a cheaper one whereby I pay more for patient share and a 10% paycut. GET REAL TEACHERS, THERE IS ONLY SO MUCH MONEY IN THE POT AND YOU ARE GETTING TOO MUCH OF IT AT THIS TIME… AND, WE WILL NOT PAY FOR AN ASSESSMENT ON OUR PROPERTY TO MAINTAIN AND INCREASE YOUR SALARIES AND BENEFITS as has been mentioned several times by your union. We are all in this together. At least when you get a cut you got furlough days, I got nothing.


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With 90 to 100 percent retirement salary at age 50,

The Calif. Dept. of Corrections

will be heading in the same direction

in the absence of a huge Tax increases by Gov. Moon Beam.


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SLOBird, you clearly are uninformed as to the facts as they pertain to this case. First, the teachers have taken pay cuts to help offset the ongoing budget deficit. Secondly, the teachers have seen their benefits cut and are now, like so many other Americans, paying too much for inadequate health coverage. Third, class sizes have increased by 50% over the last two years meaning that teacher’s workloads have increased exponentially. With all the pay cuts you have taken, have you seen your workload double? Fourth, you mention that the teachers need to comprise like the rest of us have in our jobs. So if that is the case, then I would challenge you to put your money where your mouth is. Tomorrow, walk into your place of business and tell your employer that anyone who has not been with the company for at least 10 years should be laid off immediately. That is what has happened to teachers in Paso. Teachers who had been with the district for 9+ years have been laid off. I wonder, have you been with your company for 9+ years? Sure you might have taken several cuts, but you still have a job. Where does an out of work teacher go to find another job? Another school district where they get to start at the bottom of the pay scale and work their way up for the next 8 years only to be laid off again. Lastly, in response to your 91% of the budget being spent on salaries comment, I would say this; this number encompasses all district staff. I don’t hear the administrators offering to take pay cut. All I hear is the administration saying oops, someone who is no longer hear made a mistake and now we want the teachers, who along with the custodians, have the hardest job in the district, to pay for that mistake. In fact, the current administration won’t even admit they made a mistake. They are blaming it on a “retired” employee. Before you begin to criticize the teachers I would suggest that you educate yourself, although that may be difficult with adequate teachers, as to the complete facts at hand.


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In response to Practical Sense:


I want to make it clear that I respect the choice teachers make going into the classroom for approxixmately 185 days a year and dealing with the youth, social, cultural, and behavioral issues of the day. It is a profession that does require a calling like nursing, public safety, and other struggling callings. I think you believe this is personal whereby it is business and reality. To response to a few of your comments:


1, “First, the teachers have taken pay cuts to help offset the ongoing budget deficit. ” Yes, and they have gotten furlough days in return and have shortened the school year which shortens the educational process, the main goal for teachers – students loss.


2. “Secondly, the teachers have seen their benefits cut and are now, like so many other Americans, paying too much for inadequate health coverage.” I thought (you can inform me if I am wrong, please) that teachers statewide have the same insurance and Paso teachers are paying about $200 a month. Have you priced private insurance? Most of us don’t have dental, vision, matching retirement, etc. which was established to offset the lower salaries in times past. The problem as I see it is that your salary has gone up and the benefits have remained in tack. Take the salary and give up the benefits could be a compromise.


3. “With all the pay cuts you have taken, have you seen your workload double? ” This is a ridiculous question because everyone I know has seen this happen in their workplaces. In my office which use to be 15 staff is down to 9 and we are a professional service and have the same duties and responsibilities, just redistributed/reorganized finding better ways to do more with less and yet, our client base still receives the professional treatments they need and require and no one is complaining. Yes, we are thoughtful for our jobs. We are much more selective about who we hire and train and our expectations have increased.


4. “Fourth, you mention that the teachers need to comprise….I would challenge you to put your money where your mouth is. Tomorrow, walk into your place of business and tell your employer that anyone who has not been with the company for at least 10 years should be laid off immediately.” Well, this may come as a surprise, but about 3 years ago when the obvious was happening, we reviewed our all our expeditures (good business practice) and determined that since staffing your our biggest cost what could be done to reduce this expediture and yet maintain our purpose and goals. We determined that 5 employees needed to be eliminated so we reorganized and reviewed our staffing and made several major changes to processes and procedures we were doing. We then looked at employee reviews, production, and a number of other issues and determined that 5 employees needed to be terminated to remain operating. There was no tenure, years of service, etc. Our first cricia was the review process. It was painful as these were friends, co-workers, long time employees BUT the decisions were necessary in order to stay in business. No bailouts for us.


5. “Lastly, in response to your 91% of the budget being spent on salaries comment, I would say this; this number encompasses all district staff. ” I totally agree with you on this. I think there is way too much management outside the classroom. The State has mandated this and it came from the union.


Instead of the Union fighting the citizens who are also hurting in this economy, they should be spending their money on reforming the the legislation and make these critical changes which we all agree are to much.


I strongly feel that the money should be in the classroom, and getting back to the basics. Let’s teach the kids english, reading, writing, math and add other classes as needed. The average first year college student takes classes in writing, reading and math just so they can function in college. How sad this has all become.


Have a nice day and thank you for your profession.


I am off to work, too!


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You will NEVER have such economic discipline as you suggest until you have a free market for education. Public schools are run by government. They don’t have to make a profit. They look at economics in a completely different way than the private schools do. I think the former is a colossal failure. They cannot calculate prices. They don’t have the resources to do that because they cannot get the information that they need.


In a free market, it is THE CONSUMERS who make the final decisions, NOT SCHOOL BOARDS! The consumers know what they want from their markets; the school boards and other government agencies do not, and cannot. So, they substitute simplistic principles of social engineering for economic rationality!


Does that sound like a winning strategy? No!


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The Leftist/Unionists run Cali. They will vote themselves ever increasing benefits from the public treasury and scream ‘bloody murder’ when they find themselves being paid in warrants which, 1) the State will have to issue and 2) eventually, the banks will refuse.


They have effectively (mis)educated a now dumbed-down electorate which seems incapable of critical thinking and so is prey to their Leftist propaganda.


Anyone truly interested might Google “John Dewey” to see how far back this goes..


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Well said, William. You get it. Ultimately, the debasement and destruction of our currency will destroy our ability to run our economy.


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A 54 MILLION dollar error made by a ‘retired employee’???? HAHAHAHA! And the dog ate my homework. What IS clear is that the people supposedly in charge, ‘Drs’. McNamara and Crocker are completely INCOMPETENT fools who need to be immediately replaced.


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1.59 Million is the deficit but I believe that it was an error in the 2 Million dollar range.


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Between the state of the schools and the police department, I am surprised anyone with children would want to live in Paso.


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You left out gangsters on your list. Paso’s future is pretty grim but certainly do not blame teachers or LE as the reason for it.


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Here we go again. ANOTHER school district in the hole. Why is it that it appears that almost all school districts are in SERIOUS financial problems. When you talk to these people they usually make it quite clear to you that they are amongst the smartest people around. It’s quite obvious that most of the management people of the school districts are and have been school teachers, and for the most part probably pretty good ones. But that is where the buck stops. Most of them have absolutely no business experience and or business education. This is an area where the system has failed all of us by once again putting unqualified people into very important management positions. This is just another part of government that has let us down. Of course their answer to their recklessness will be to raise taxes.


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LIBERAL’S,

DEMOCRAT’S,

SOCIALIST’S,

Usually make it quite clear that they are amongst the smartest people around.


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“Here we go again. ANOTHER school district in the hole.”


I won’t try to defend Paso Robles School District Administration and school Board responsibility, but if education funding continues at the current level, other local Districts will follow. With recent midyear cuts, California (per student) education funding is AT THE BOTTON (49 or 50/ 50 states) No lie, but we get what we pay for.


If it matters, try to fix it at the November Ballot box. If it doesn’t pull the handle and flush our kid’s future down the “minimum wage water ride of the future.”


“Do you want fries with that?”


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“we get what we pay for.”


Please don’t fool yourself, we are not getting what we pay for. CA ranks number 2 for paying the highest State income taxes in the country, we are only out ranked by New York. Yet our state ranks next to last with the funding of education! What are they doing with all our tax $$ ? Perhaps we have an inordinate percentage of students as compared to families actually who pay taxes? It’s hard to say however, the DOE doesn’t factor in all the Federal funding CA receives for all our special language programs, poverty programs and special feel good ethnic social studies and Latino history classes. When those funds are factored in, we spend approx $11,626 per student but it doesn’t matter because our students still test at some of the lowest scores in the country.


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Superintendent Kathy McNamara manages this $50 million+ budget along w/a team of assistant superintendents. I imagine at least some of them (hopefully!) have financial backgrounds but as you asserted, McNamara indeed was a former teacher. Her background is in Home Ec. That alone does nothing to instill confidence in me as a parent w/kids in the district. Not accounting, not finance. Home Economics.


I do think teachers will need to take a pay cut HOWEVER nothing has been mentioned about the top-heavy administration’s handsome salaries. Will they also be taking a salary reduction? Will the long-term administrators (10+ yrs) also be getting their previously-promised bonuses though the district is in the red? ( McNamara confirmed that on radio 1230am on Jan 16 2012.)


King City was taken over by the state a few years back and it appears that Paso is headed in that direction. Although I usually approve of local schools maintaining local control, so far this superintendent and her team of “experts” have been, as CA Native stated, totally incompetent. If McNamara and another adminstrator or two were to get fired over this situation, it would not be surprising.


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You are right, Cindy.


But, who’s to say what the administrators or anybody else in the system should be paid? Without a free market with its natural, consumer-driven pricing system, it’s impossible to come up with figures!


That’s the whole damn problem with government-run enterprises; the pricing system gets obscured or destroyed so that nobody can tell what anything ought to cost anymore!


YOU CANNOT RUN A MARKET OR AN ECONOMY IN THIS WAY AND HOPE TO HOLD YOUR HEAD ABOVE WATER!


Leave the education market to the mercy of the government and they will continue to grind it into dust and mud!


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Sooner or later this happens to all “government run businesses.” Why? Because they can’t run economic markets. They can’t do this because they cannot calculate prices. There is too much information for them to do this. They can’t handle it. So, things begin to break down. Decisions have no rationality to them. Money gets stolen. Resources become MISALLOCATED.


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“Why is it that it appears that almost all school districts are in SERIOUS financial problems.”


Because government always fails when it tries to interfere with or dominate an economic market, in this case, education. That is precisely why the Soviet system crashed and burned.


Economic markets involve subjective human action and decision making. There are no formulas for running them. “Command and control” will not get it done. They are unpredictable, ever changing. They contain, for all practical purposes, infinite amounts of information which is used in infinite ways by the economic players, consumers, etc.


Government agencies cannot access nearly enough of this information to make any sense of it. Even if they could, they would not be able to handle the sheer volume of it. Even if they could do that, they would not be able to act on it fast enough to keep up with changing market conditions the way that free market players do on their own.


This is why people who believe in free markets do not want “public schools,” “socialized medicine,” or other fantastic government schemes; they perceive these schemes as interference in the free markets and as destructive to human freedom and prosperity.


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Mr Holly, well said. But even philosopher kings cannot make a socialist system work like the free market. It’s just not possible.


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