Upset Lawyer and Non-Existent Budget Process

June 24, 2004

Dear Editor,
Methinks the lawyer doth protest too much. (“Costa Hawkins Has Saved Santa Monica Rental Housing,” June 22, 2004)

haRa beck
Santa Monica

June 23, 2004

Dear Editor,

The best kept secret in Santa Monica and Malibu has been public awareness or discussion of the SMMUSD proposed $100 million budget for 2004-05.

The print and electronic media in our communities have not carried one story -- other than a tiny Notice of Public Hearing back on June 3 -- about the budget process this year because it has been virtually non-existent.

The District has done almost nothing to inform the public of its spending plan for next year. On the District website you will find no press releases, no superintendent's comments, and no detailed 2004-05 budget information.

If you click on "Board meetings," you will discover that on Monday, June 14, a special meeting was held where the proposed 2004-05 budget was presented and discussed for the first time. Fortunately, Tricia Crane, Chair of the Special Education DAC, made arrangements to have the meeting professionally taped for rebroadcast so that interested members of the public would have an opportunity to hear the Special Ed Strategic Plan and Budget discussions.

If you couldn't attend the meeting or hear the rebroadcast, you missed
Superintendent Deasy's opening erroneous comparisons about teacher and
administrative salary expenditure trends over the last three years. Maybe it was the late hour that caused his confusion.

You also missed Board member Emily Bloomfield's request for the 2004-05 District Enrollment Projections that should have been presented to the Board for analysis and discussion back in February.

Sometime after midnight, Board member Shane McCloud sought information about substitute pay so he could make some sense of the reported $200,000 to $300,000 overrun in that account. But his late night calculations and the Superintendent's subsequent comments left an unfortunate misconception about teacher usage of the substitute pool.

Maybe they forgot about the $30,000 the Board approved earlier this school year for 66 days of pay to a retired assistant principal who subbed for district personnel at a higher daily rate than the employees on leave.

Incredibly Ken Bailey, the Chief Financial Officer who earlier in the evening had his contract renewed for three years, made very brief remarks about the budget proposal without using a Power-point presentation or providing a written explanatory handout for the public.

During the discussion about possible ways to cut $860,000 in order to balance the budget, the Superintendent must have forgotten about disclosure provisions in the Brown Act when he referenced a possible $250,000 savings from a Human Resources Reorganization study that the Board had earlier tabled for discussion at a later date.

And markedly absent from the discussion was any commentary or advise
from the District Financial Oversight Committee. That's because they,
too, have been kept completely in the dark and did not review the budget proposal until the day AFTER the June 14 meeting!

So, the last chance to hear or comment about the proposed budget was Thursday night, June 24, which ended the most superficial budget process I have ever personally witnessed in over 30 years of involvement in school finance.

Why has the Administration abandoned the past practices of following a
set budget calendar, providing complete budget materials, and holding a
timely public budget workshop?

And why, when we're reaching out to City Councils and the taxpayers for much needed financial support, are we doing less to include them in the budget process?

In order to restore public confidence in the process, the Board must make finding answers to these overarching questions their highest priority.