Budget/Taxes

By Bill Storm, Ingrid Salim and Greg Brucker 

GUEST COMMENTARY – We go public with this blog the day after California voters have approved Prop. 30, and Davis voters have approved Measure E, both measures being an affirmation of the value citizens place on public education.

Measure E is, in particular, an expression of support from the citizens of Davis who have long acknowledged the unique neglect public education has suffered in California.  That they continue to support their public schools with such commitment and sacrifice in the midst of the Great Recession is humbling, and we are grateful to them for their faith in us.

President Justifies Five Furlough Days Amid Budget Crisis if Prop 30 Fails – In an op-ed in the Enterprise today, Frank Thomsen attempted to explain and defend the position of the Davis Teachers Association, who to this point have resisted efforts by the school district to win concessions in the event that Proposition 30 does not pass.

Mr. Thomsen writes, “The outcomes of Proposition 30 and Measure E will determine whether we even maintain the current precarious fiscal situation we now have or whether we will face a future of immediate and ongoing school cuts that is almost too bleak to contemplate.”

The school district continues to make no apparent progress toward salary concessions, as the board seeks to create a contingency should Proposition 30 be defeated this November.  The loss of Proposition 30 would result in roughly $3.7 million dollars in funding lost to the school district midyear.

On Thursday, the president of CSEA (California School Employees Association), which represents support staff, announced that their membership had ratified a tentative agreement with the district by a wide margin.

COMMENTARY: Teachers Need to Take the Concessions That Others Have Already Taken – Is there a misperception about the need for cuts and concessions in the community?  A letter to the editor of the Davis Enterprise seems to suggest as much.

Karen Newton of Davis writes: “Why is the Davis school district demanding concessions from its teachers and support personnel? Currently, there is enough in the budget to pay these educators.”

On Monday, October 1, 2012, the Davis Vanguard and Davis Media Access (DMA) will be hosting a candidates forum for the Davis School Board candidates to be held in the Harper Junior High Multipurpose room. The doors open at 6:30 PM and the forum begins at 7:00 PM.

The forum will have a unique setup in that candidates will be seated facing each other in a discussion format. Each of the five candidates will ask one question to be answered by themselves and the other candidates, and then there will be time at the end for question and answer of the candidates.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before – the school district is facing fiscal crisis that requires immediate action or we face cuts in the millions.  And the worst part is that there is a very real chance that even if the district is able to make those cuts, it will lack the cash to meet payrolls and end up being taken over by the state – the same state that is largely responsible for these problems in the first place.

People have the right to be skeptical.  After all, if you cry doom and gloom all of the time, people have the tendency to regard you as the boy that cried wolf.  At some point when you are crying fiscal emergency all of the time, people stop running.

The School Board did not have a vote on Thursday night, but there is clear support at this point for putting another parcel tax measure on the ballot this November that, while falling short of the bold initiative put forward by Trustee Richard Harris, would enable the district to stay afloat during a time that more than one board member called the most fiscally troubling so far.

Superintendent Winfred Roberson would not commit to supporting Richard Harris’ radical and stunning proposal, which coupled with his surprise announcement not to run has turned the school district calculations on their head.

“I want to give people enough time to know that I’m not running,” he told the Vanguard.  “I’m not running because I need more time with my family and my work, but I still want to accomplish what I wanted to accomplish when I first ran.”

When voters back in March overwhelmingly approved the renewal of the parcel tax, we warned the voters that this was not going to cover the entire deficit.  In addition to the six million dollars funded by the parcel tax, there was another three million structural deficit.

Last week, the situation became heated as a large number of teachers came to the school board meeting to complain about potential plans for a 5.5 percent cut.

When Davis voters approved Measure C on March 6, the parcel tax would generate enough annual revenue to save around 87 jobs that could have faced elimination had the measure failed.

However, even with that passage, the district still faces a 3.5 million dollar budget shortfall that the district is calling a structural deficit.  As a result, a total of 57 teachers and staff members now face a layoff despite the passage of Measure C.