The school board’s own financial oversight committee, in its June 2010 report, sums it up: “Even after the board’s actions [budget cuts] last week, our District remains on a path to financial insolvency.” State funding cuts of $10 million in each of the past two years have contributed to the problem, but so has the school board itself. 

Board members refuse to take responsibility for the budget.  Their knee-jerk reaction to the district’s financial crises? Point at others: Blame the state. Expect the taxpayers, community fundraisers, and the City of Santa Monica to bail them out every time.

When cuts must be made, the board simply chooses from a menu presented to them by the superintendent and staff.  I will look into the budget myself; in fact, I did that for three weeks at the beginning of the summer, and I am still looking.

There is another way to identify potential cuts that would impact students less than the ones made for 2010-2011: compare SMMUSD expenses in specific budget areas to the amount comparable districts spend on the same budget area. The California Department of Education website (www.cde.ca.gov) has a program to do this. Categories where SMMUSD expenses are way higher should be examined closely.

For example, Las Virgenes Unified, a nearby district of comparable size and make-up as SMMUSD, cut its budget category General Administration Expenditures by 7.7% (from $3.9 million to $3.6 million). Meanwhile, the SMMUSD’s General Administration Expenditures—nearly twice the amount of Las Virgenes’ to begin with—increased by 4.5% to $6.9 million.

While the SMMUSD was cutting teachers, the district’s internationally recognized music program, librarians, reading specialists, and depleting its reserves, administrative costs received more money. (Las Virgenes even squeaked in a projected budget surplus of $20,000.)

Other discrepancies between SMMUSD and Las Virgenes that should be investigated:

• General Administration Expenditure Personnel-Related Costs in the SMMUSD were three times higher according to the latest available numbers (www.cde.ca.gov). In 2008-2009, the SMMUSD spent $2.05m while Las Virgenes spent $630,000—more than three times less than SMMUSD, $184 per student vs. $54 per student. In 2010-11, SMMUSD's Personnel-Related Costs are expected to remain roughly at the $2.05 million level.

• General Administration Expenditures by the SMMUSD in the area of Budget and Fiscal were twice as high as Las Virgenes ($1.3 million vs. $691,000 in the latest reported year—the Las Virgenes numbers are for 2008-2009, but it’s unlikely they have risen).

• SMMUSD projects that communications will cost $391,150.00 in 2010-11. The latest available numbers once again show the SMMUSD well ahead of Las Virgenes, which in 2008-09 spent  $254,000 compared to our $394,000 in that year. Do we really need $140,000 more worth of cell phones, faxes, etc., than Las Virgenes? That money would restore a couple of teachers’ jobs.

Maybe good reasons will be found for these and other discrepancies, maybe not. That level of detail is only available from the district office, which requires me to file a Request for Access to or Copies of District Records and wait up to 10 days; if it’s a “special request,” which is undefined on the form, I could have to wait up to 14 days.  My point is, present board members, who have ready access to the necessary information, have not even asked these questions, which could identify potential cuts much farther away from the classroom than almost all of the cuts made for this school year. 

As a board member, I will continue exploring the budget myself, and I will ask those questions.