The gist of that report is that the state budget picture with the approval of a new budget is very uncertain for schools. However, commenters have continued to question the district’s spending practices and their ability to absorb two million or so in loss of revenue from the state and a lack of COLA to even keep up with inflation.
In particular, there is the suggestion that the district was able to cut $1.1 million from the budget and that therefore those things cut amounted to an admission that there was waste in the system.
Those budget cuts were obtained in a variety of ways including the closing of Valley Oak (something that I remain strongly opposed to), the non-replacement of retired teachers, the non-filling of vacant administration positions, and letting an assistant superintendent leave.
Some of these cuts have led to further questions and I will attempt to briefly address these questions. I strongly urge people who have further questions to talk to the district rather than jump to conclusions. While I would consider myself more knowledgeable than many on the issue of the district’s budget simply because I have been covering this issue for frequently, I am hardly any sort of expert or authority on the matter.
One question that emerged this weekend was how Valley Oak’s closure was able to save money if there are now programs that are located on the campus.
As people are aware, the closing of Valley Oak did not cause teachers to be laid off. However, there is still a large amount of operational expenses that are saved when a school closes. These include the principal and office staff, library support, teaching specialist support, custodial support, and some utility savings.
The programs that have been moved to the Valley Oak campus were relocated from Korematsu. There is no additional staff for these programs nor are any of these programs new.
The programs are only taking up about half of the campus. There are able to lease space out to other programs such as a Yolo County Office of Education program, Los Rios College, and STEAC.
An additional question came up about the crunch lunch and food improvements. These are intended to increase sales that will enhance the Student Nutrition Program.
As I mentioned in the comments yesterday, food services is a totally separate fund from the General Fund with the exceptions of the Measure Q enhancement. In other words, none of this money is coming from the general fund. The Measure Q funding as people know is required based on laws the bound parcel taxes. So none of this money is discretionary.
The district believes that in order to keep sales up that they need to serve quality food and if they don’t, they will not break even and that money will come from the general fund.
Schools are required by law to offer food service as part of the National School Lunch Program. Most of the district’s meals go to “free and reduced” qualified students. The district need cash paying students to help cover the cost of the program. If all cash paying students brought lunch, the district would lose money on this program and the General Fund would have to cover the loss.
The crunch lunch does not require additional staff. They were making pre-packaged salads and they were going unsold.
In addition Davis Farm to School is a non-profit partner in this program. No district funds flow through them.
Finally on the energy savings program–it began over a year ago. It was approved by the school board in the summer of 2006. Savings from this program were used in adopting the budget–it is part that $1.1 million they saved. Much of the savings however are mitigations from rate increases.
It is important to continue to ask questions about the district’s budget process. It is a very complicated process and I keep learning more and more about it myself. However, there are a lot of assumptions and accusations being thrown out that that are simply untrue. We should try to education ourselves first before jumping to conclusions.
—Doug Paul Davis reporting
It would be good to read an article on the “reconfiguration” proposals being proposed for the Junior/High School. Particularly, I’d like to know what justification(s) are being used to advance that attempt, and who are the people pushing it.
It would be good to read an article on the “reconfiguration” proposals being proposed for the Junior/High School. Particularly, I’d like to know what justification(s) are being used to advance that attempt, and who are the people pushing it.
It would be good to read an article on the “reconfiguration” proposals being proposed for the Junior/High School. Particularly, I’d like to know what justification(s) are being used to advance that attempt, and who are the people pushing it.
It would be good to read an article on the “reconfiguration” proposals being proposed for the Junior/High School. Particularly, I’d like to know what justification(s) are being used to advance that attempt, and who are the people pushing it.
“However, there are a lot of assumptions and accusations being thrown out that that are simply untrue. We should try to education ourselves first before jumping to conclusions.”
1) What happened to the principal of VO? My understanding is that she still has a job in Davis.
2) The “educational center” that replaced VO will still need janitorial staff, will still have utility costs, no?
3) The non-replacement of retired teachers means no teacher was fired, so no cost savings was had w respect to teaching staff at Valley Oak.
4) Ostensibly Valley Oak was closed bc of “declining enrollment”. That was the reason given by the school district. Yet enrollment did not decline, but in fact increased slightly. So in my book Valley Oak was closed for nothing. (We will have to agree to disagree on this one, DPD.) The school district got it wrong, dead wrong. Because of it, the best EL program in Davis was destroyed, and the kids were shipped away from their neighborhood school. That sort of thing will have long term consequences for the surrounding neighborhood. I’ll bet Sheila Allen and Richard Harris would not allow Karamatsu or Marguerite Montgomery to close – NITN (not in their neighborhoods). In the Davis Enterprise Sheila Allen was heard to callously gush about how wonderful it was to have her children go to Karamatsu – now that it is fully staffed, funded and running smoothly thanks to the closing of Valley Oak.
4) Non-filling of vacant administrative positions and letting an assistant superintendent leave sound like reasonable cost cutting measures that should be instituted regularly in tough budgetary times. Yet the school district insisted, when they came hat in hand about the parcel tax, that there were absolutely no savings that could possibly be instituted w/o destroying programs. Had no problem killing off an entire school, but musn’t lose programs. What about Valley Oak’s EL program – the best in Davis?
5) So now we know Valley Oak was closed so the school district could lease out the building to make money from renting the building out. Was that part of the school district’s budget solution? Is that what is slated for Emerson?
6) So what are you saying DPD, that before salad bars were instituted, the children were not getting healthful enough lunches? How much is being paid to staff the salad bar, as opposed to the cafeteria staff making and serving a simple salad w/o the necessity of having an extra staff person? (The Davis Enterprise stated an extra staff person is needed to man the salad bar.) So now we need this extra staff person to man the salad bars in order to keep the free and reduced lunch program alive? The free and reduced lunch program is federally funded as far as I know. So now the school district is trying to fob off the notion if we don’t have salad bars in elementary schools, then the free and reduced lunch program may not survive? What a whopper – and I don’t mean the hamburger at Burger King!
7) How much is being paid to the Davis author to give cooking lessons to a staff that should already know how to cook for the Crunch Lunch program?
8) Energy conservation was used as a cost cutting mechanism. Why did it take until 2006 to institute those savings? Because as long as parcel tax money was forthcoming, there was no need for the school district to find ways to save money perhaps?
DPD, we are all learning more about the school budgeting process, and many of us do not like what we see. Problem is the school district keeps asking for money to institute new programs, then they become part of the “core curricula” that must be saved AT ALL COSTS. Example: the Crunch Lunch Program.
We know have instituted salad bars at the elementary, junior and senior high school levels. It requires an extra staff person at each school to man it from what I read in the Davis Enterprise (clarify if that is not true). We are probably also paying to have some Davis author to give cooking lessons to cafeteria staff (correct me and let me know if this author is doing it for free). Now we are told the Crunch Lunch program must survive or the free and reduced lunch program will not survive. Sorry, but common sense and logic just won’t swallow this tale of woe. Now we have one more program that is now essential to the survival of our wonderful Davis schools.
If we pay the $120 parcel tax this time, what happens at the next shortfall, and there will most certainly be another shortfall? Hammond has already told us the $120 is not enough to cover the shortfalls that are coming. Another parcel tax in March? Or next year? Do we keep upping the ante? At what point do taxpayers say enough is enough?
You have not had any kids go through the school system, so you lack some of the actual knowledge some of us oldtimers have about “core curricula” and the actual budgeting process. We have seen this scenario play out over and over again. Yet the Tahir Ahad scandal has been the result; the closure of VO has been the result; the “misplacement” of money to build King High was the result; the payment to a Supt for doing nothing for a year was the result; and the list goes on…
I will say it again. The real issue is lack of accountability – and what has been put in place just doesn’t cut it. As John Munn pointed out – we are willing to support the school district this year to bail them out of their current fiscal mess, but not again. But IMHO that is merely putting off for one year what is most certainly going to happen again and again and again, as it has in the past. I want accountability now, before I give one more single dime of my tax money.
“However, there are a lot of assumptions and accusations being thrown out that that are simply untrue. We should try to education ourselves first before jumping to conclusions.”
1) What happened to the principal of VO? My understanding is that she still has a job in Davis.
2) The “educational center” that replaced VO will still need janitorial staff, will still have utility costs, no?
3) The non-replacement of retired teachers means no teacher was fired, so no cost savings was had w respect to teaching staff at Valley Oak.
4) Ostensibly Valley Oak was closed bc of “declining enrollment”. That was the reason given by the school district. Yet enrollment did not decline, but in fact increased slightly. So in my book Valley Oak was closed for nothing. (We will have to agree to disagree on this one, DPD.) The school district got it wrong, dead wrong. Because of it, the best EL program in Davis was destroyed, and the kids were shipped away from their neighborhood school. That sort of thing will have long term consequences for the surrounding neighborhood. I’ll bet Sheila Allen and Richard Harris would not allow Karamatsu or Marguerite Montgomery to close – NITN (not in their neighborhoods). In the Davis Enterprise Sheila Allen was heard to callously gush about how wonderful it was to have her children go to Karamatsu – now that it is fully staffed, funded and running smoothly thanks to the closing of Valley Oak.
4) Non-filling of vacant administrative positions and letting an assistant superintendent leave sound like reasonable cost cutting measures that should be instituted regularly in tough budgetary times. Yet the school district insisted, when they came hat in hand about the parcel tax, that there were absolutely no savings that could possibly be instituted w/o destroying programs. Had no problem killing off an entire school, but musn’t lose programs. What about Valley Oak’s EL program – the best in Davis?
5) So now we know Valley Oak was closed so the school district could lease out the building to make money from renting the building out. Was that part of the school district’s budget solution? Is that what is slated for Emerson?
6) So what are you saying DPD, that before salad bars were instituted, the children were not getting healthful enough lunches? How much is being paid to staff the salad bar, as opposed to the cafeteria staff making and serving a simple salad w/o the necessity of having an extra staff person? (The Davis Enterprise stated an extra staff person is needed to man the salad bar.) So now we need this extra staff person to man the salad bars in order to keep the free and reduced lunch program alive? The free and reduced lunch program is federally funded as far as I know. So now the school district is trying to fob off the notion if we don’t have salad bars in elementary schools, then the free and reduced lunch program may not survive? What a whopper – and I don’t mean the hamburger at Burger King!
7) How much is being paid to the Davis author to give cooking lessons to a staff that should already know how to cook for the Crunch Lunch program?
8) Energy conservation was used as a cost cutting mechanism. Why did it take until 2006 to institute those savings? Because as long as parcel tax money was forthcoming, there was no need for the school district to find ways to save money perhaps?
DPD, we are all learning more about the school budgeting process, and many of us do not like what we see. Problem is the school district keeps asking for money to institute new programs, then they become part of the “core curricula” that must be saved AT ALL COSTS. Example: the Crunch Lunch Program.
We know have instituted salad bars at the elementary, junior and senior high school levels. It requires an extra staff person at each school to man it from what I read in the Davis Enterprise (clarify if that is not true). We are probably also paying to have some Davis author to give cooking lessons to cafeteria staff (correct me and let me know if this author is doing it for free). Now we are told the Crunch Lunch program must survive or the free and reduced lunch program will not survive. Sorry, but common sense and logic just won’t swallow this tale of woe. Now we have one more program that is now essential to the survival of our wonderful Davis schools.
If we pay the $120 parcel tax this time, what happens at the next shortfall, and there will most certainly be another shortfall? Hammond has already told us the $120 is not enough to cover the shortfalls that are coming. Another parcel tax in March? Or next year? Do we keep upping the ante? At what point do taxpayers say enough is enough?
You have not had any kids go through the school system, so you lack some of the actual knowledge some of us oldtimers have about “core curricula” and the actual budgeting process. We have seen this scenario play out over and over again. Yet the Tahir Ahad scandal has been the result; the closure of VO has been the result; the “misplacement” of money to build King High was the result; the payment to a Supt for doing nothing for a year was the result; and the list goes on…
I will say it again. The real issue is lack of accountability – and what has been put in place just doesn’t cut it. As John Munn pointed out – we are willing to support the school district this year to bail them out of their current fiscal mess, but not again. But IMHO that is merely putting off for one year what is most certainly going to happen again and again and again, as it has in the past. I want accountability now, before I give one more single dime of my tax money.
“However, there are a lot of assumptions and accusations being thrown out that that are simply untrue. We should try to education ourselves first before jumping to conclusions.”
1) What happened to the principal of VO? My understanding is that she still has a job in Davis.
2) The “educational center” that replaced VO will still need janitorial staff, will still have utility costs, no?
3) The non-replacement of retired teachers means no teacher was fired, so no cost savings was had w respect to teaching staff at Valley Oak.
4) Ostensibly Valley Oak was closed bc of “declining enrollment”. That was the reason given by the school district. Yet enrollment did not decline, but in fact increased slightly. So in my book Valley Oak was closed for nothing. (We will have to agree to disagree on this one, DPD.) The school district got it wrong, dead wrong. Because of it, the best EL program in Davis was destroyed, and the kids were shipped away from their neighborhood school. That sort of thing will have long term consequences for the surrounding neighborhood. I’ll bet Sheila Allen and Richard Harris would not allow Karamatsu or Marguerite Montgomery to close – NITN (not in their neighborhoods). In the Davis Enterprise Sheila Allen was heard to callously gush about how wonderful it was to have her children go to Karamatsu – now that it is fully staffed, funded and running smoothly thanks to the closing of Valley Oak.
4) Non-filling of vacant administrative positions and letting an assistant superintendent leave sound like reasonable cost cutting measures that should be instituted regularly in tough budgetary times. Yet the school district insisted, when they came hat in hand about the parcel tax, that there were absolutely no savings that could possibly be instituted w/o destroying programs. Had no problem killing off an entire school, but musn’t lose programs. What about Valley Oak’s EL program – the best in Davis?
5) So now we know Valley Oak was closed so the school district could lease out the building to make money from renting the building out. Was that part of the school district’s budget solution? Is that what is slated for Emerson?
6) So what are you saying DPD, that before salad bars were instituted, the children were not getting healthful enough lunches? How much is being paid to staff the salad bar, as opposed to the cafeteria staff making and serving a simple salad w/o the necessity of having an extra staff person? (The Davis Enterprise stated an extra staff person is needed to man the salad bar.) So now we need this extra staff person to man the salad bars in order to keep the free and reduced lunch program alive? The free and reduced lunch program is federally funded as far as I know. So now the school district is trying to fob off the notion if we don’t have salad bars in elementary schools, then the free and reduced lunch program may not survive? What a whopper – and I don’t mean the hamburger at Burger King!
7) How much is being paid to the Davis author to give cooking lessons to a staff that should already know how to cook for the Crunch Lunch program?
8) Energy conservation was used as a cost cutting mechanism. Why did it take until 2006 to institute those savings? Because as long as parcel tax money was forthcoming, there was no need for the school district to find ways to save money perhaps?
DPD, we are all learning more about the school budgeting process, and many of us do not like what we see. Problem is the school district keeps asking for money to institute new programs, then they become part of the “core curricula” that must be saved AT ALL COSTS. Example: the Crunch Lunch Program.
We know have instituted salad bars at the elementary, junior and senior high school levels. It requires an extra staff person at each school to man it from what I read in the Davis Enterprise (clarify if that is not true). We are probably also paying to have some Davis author to give cooking lessons to cafeteria staff (correct me and let me know if this author is doing it for free). Now we are told the Crunch Lunch program must survive or the free and reduced lunch program will not survive. Sorry, but common sense and logic just won’t swallow this tale of woe. Now we have one more program that is now essential to the survival of our wonderful Davis schools.
If we pay the $120 parcel tax this time, what happens at the next shortfall, and there will most certainly be another shortfall? Hammond has already told us the $120 is not enough to cover the shortfalls that are coming. Another parcel tax in March? Or next year? Do we keep upping the ante? At what point do taxpayers say enough is enough?
You have not had any kids go through the school system, so you lack some of the actual knowledge some of us oldtimers have about “core curricula” and the actual budgeting process. We have seen this scenario play out over and over again. Yet the Tahir Ahad scandal has been the result; the closure of VO has been the result; the “misplacement” of money to build King High was the result; the payment to a Supt for doing nothing for a year was the result; and the list goes on…
I will say it again. The real issue is lack of accountability – and what has been put in place just doesn’t cut it. As John Munn pointed out – we are willing to support the school district this year to bail them out of their current fiscal mess, but not again. But IMHO that is merely putting off for one year what is most certainly going to happen again and again and again, as it has in the past. I want accountability now, before I give one more single dime of my tax money.
“However, there are a lot of assumptions and accusations being thrown out that that are simply untrue. We should try to education ourselves first before jumping to conclusions.”
1) What happened to the principal of VO? My understanding is that she still has a job in Davis.
2) The “educational center” that replaced VO will still need janitorial staff, will still have utility costs, no?
3) The non-replacement of retired teachers means no teacher was fired, so no cost savings was had w respect to teaching staff at Valley Oak.
4) Ostensibly Valley Oak was closed bc of “declining enrollment”. That was the reason given by the school district. Yet enrollment did not decline, but in fact increased slightly. So in my book Valley Oak was closed for nothing. (We will have to agree to disagree on this one, DPD.) The school district got it wrong, dead wrong. Because of it, the best EL program in Davis was destroyed, and the kids were shipped away from their neighborhood school. That sort of thing will have long term consequences for the surrounding neighborhood. I’ll bet Sheila Allen and Richard Harris would not allow Karamatsu or Marguerite Montgomery to close – NITN (not in their neighborhoods). In the Davis Enterprise Sheila Allen was heard to callously gush about how wonderful it was to have her children go to Karamatsu – now that it is fully staffed, funded and running smoothly thanks to the closing of Valley Oak.
4) Non-filling of vacant administrative positions and letting an assistant superintendent leave sound like reasonable cost cutting measures that should be instituted regularly in tough budgetary times. Yet the school district insisted, when they came hat in hand about the parcel tax, that there were absolutely no savings that could possibly be instituted w/o destroying programs. Had no problem killing off an entire school, but musn’t lose programs. What about Valley Oak’s EL program – the best in Davis?
5) So now we know Valley Oak was closed so the school district could lease out the building to make money from renting the building out. Was that part of the school district’s budget solution? Is that what is slated for Emerson?
6) So what are you saying DPD, that before salad bars were instituted, the children were not getting healthful enough lunches? How much is being paid to staff the salad bar, as opposed to the cafeteria staff making and serving a simple salad w/o the necessity of having an extra staff person? (The Davis Enterprise stated an extra staff person is needed to man the salad bar.) So now we need this extra staff person to man the salad bars in order to keep the free and reduced lunch program alive? The free and reduced lunch program is federally funded as far as I know. So now the school district is trying to fob off the notion if we don’t have salad bars in elementary schools, then the free and reduced lunch program may not survive? What a whopper – and I don’t mean the hamburger at Burger King!
7) How much is being paid to the Davis author to give cooking lessons to a staff that should already know how to cook for the Crunch Lunch program?
8) Energy conservation was used as a cost cutting mechanism. Why did it take until 2006 to institute those savings? Because as long as parcel tax money was forthcoming, there was no need for the school district to find ways to save money perhaps?
DPD, we are all learning more about the school budgeting process, and many of us do not like what we see. Problem is the school district keeps asking for money to institute new programs, then they become part of the “core curricula” that must be saved AT ALL COSTS. Example: the Crunch Lunch Program.
We know have instituted salad bars at the elementary, junior and senior high school levels. It requires an extra staff person at each school to man it from what I read in the Davis Enterprise (clarify if that is not true). We are probably also paying to have some Davis author to give cooking lessons to cafeteria staff (correct me and let me know if this author is doing it for free). Now we are told the Crunch Lunch program must survive or the free and reduced lunch program will not survive. Sorry, but common sense and logic just won’t swallow this tale of woe. Now we have one more program that is now essential to the survival of our wonderful Davis schools.
If we pay the $120 parcel tax this time, what happens at the next shortfall, and there will most certainly be another shortfall? Hammond has already told us the $120 is not enough to cover the shortfalls that are coming. Another parcel tax in March? Or next year? Do we keep upping the ante? At what point do taxpayers say enough is enough?
You have not had any kids go through the school system, so you lack some of the actual knowledge some of us oldtimers have about “core curricula” and the actual budgeting process. We have seen this scenario play out over and over again. Yet the Tahir Ahad scandal has been the result; the closure of VO has been the result; the “misplacement” of money to build King High was the result; the payment to a Supt for doing nothing for a year was the result; and the list goes on…
I will say it again. The real issue is lack of accountability – and what has been put in place just doesn’t cut it. As John Munn pointed out – we are willing to support the school district this year to bail them out of their current fiscal mess, but not again. But IMHO that is merely putting off for one year what is most certainly going to happen again and again and again, as it has in the past. I want accountability now, before I give one more single dime of my tax money.
“1) What happened to the principal of VO? My understanding is that she still has a job in Davis.”
She is now principal at Korematsu, replacing the old principal. One fewer principal that the district has to pay for.
“1) What happened to the principal of VO? My understanding is that she still has a job in Davis.”
She is now principal at Korematsu, replacing the old principal. One fewer principal that the district has to pay for.
“1) What happened to the principal of VO? My understanding is that she still has a job in Davis.”
She is now principal at Korematsu, replacing the old principal. One fewer principal that the district has to pay for.
“1) What happened to the principal of VO? My understanding is that she still has a job in Davis.”
She is now principal at Korematsu, replacing the old principal. One fewer principal that the district has to pay for.
“What about Valley Oak’s EL program – the best in Davis?”
Is now a part of EL programs at other schools in Davis.
“What about Valley Oak’s EL program – the best in Davis?”
Is now a part of EL programs at other schools in Davis.
“What about Valley Oak’s EL program – the best in Davis?”
Is now a part of EL programs at other schools in Davis.
“What about Valley Oak’s EL program – the best in Davis?”
Is now a part of EL programs at other schools in Davis.
“So what are you saying DPD, that before salad bars were instituted, the children were not getting healthful enough lunches? How much is being paid to staff the salad bar, as opposed to the cafeteria staff making and serving a simple salad w/o the necessity of having an extra staff person?”
another salad rant…
“So what are you saying DPD, that before salad bars were instituted, the children were not getting healthful enough lunches? How much is being paid to staff the salad bar, as opposed to the cafeteria staff making and serving a simple salad w/o the necessity of having an extra staff person?”
another salad rant…
“So what are you saying DPD, that before salad bars were instituted, the children were not getting healthful enough lunches? How much is being paid to staff the salad bar, as opposed to the cafeteria staff making and serving a simple salad w/o the necessity of having an extra staff person?”
another salad rant…
“So what are you saying DPD, that before salad bars were instituted, the children were not getting healthful enough lunches? How much is being paid to staff the salad bar, as opposed to the cafeteria staff making and serving a simple salad w/o the necessity of having an extra staff person?”
another salad rant…
The previous food program resulted in the loss of money. The new program is apparently breaking even. As I reported yesterday, no additional staff person hired for the crunch lunch program.
The previous food program resulted in the loss of money. The new program is apparently breaking even. As I reported yesterday, no additional staff person hired for the crunch lunch program.
The previous food program resulted in the loss of money. The new program is apparently breaking even. As I reported yesterday, no additional staff person hired for the crunch lunch program.
The previous food program resulted in the loss of money. The new program is apparently breaking even. As I reported yesterday, no additional staff person hired for the crunch lunch program.
David Greenwald,(also know as DPD, make up your own name here),
What fact is the statement, APPARENTLY BREAKING EVEN, referring to? Is this Obama talk? What are the dollar figures? Facts are those items that are tangible and visible to prove a point.
David Greenwald,(also know as DPD, make up your own name here),
What fact is the statement, APPARENTLY BREAKING EVEN, referring to? Is this Obama talk? What are the dollar figures? Facts are those items that are tangible and visible to prove a point.
David Greenwald,(also know as DPD, make up your own name here),
What fact is the statement, APPARENTLY BREAKING EVEN, referring to? Is this Obama talk? What are the dollar figures? Facts are those items that are tangible and visible to prove a point.
David Greenwald,(also know as DPD, make up your own name here),
What fact is the statement, APPARENTLY BREAKING EVEN, referring to? Is this Obama talk? What are the dollar figures? Facts are those items that are tangible and visible to prove a point.
I don’t think you’ll get immediate figures while receipts and payments are going back and forth for the first months of school.
It is a good question to raise before the Measure Q oversight committee, however.
I don’t think you’ll get immediate figures while receipts and payments are going back and forth for the first months of school.
It is a good question to raise before the Measure Q oversight committee, however.
I don’t think you’ll get immediate figures while receipts and payments are going back and forth for the first months of school.
It is a good question to raise before the Measure Q oversight committee, however.
I don’t think you’ll get immediate figures while receipts and payments are going back and forth for the first months of school.
It is a good question to raise before the Measure Q oversight committee, however.