California Proposed Budget Sheds Light On SHUSD Frivolous Spending

Like most people, I’ve never taken much notice when the governor releases a proposed budget. However, because of fears that our school district may soon be facing tough financial decisions, I decided to take a look at Gov. Schwarzenegger’s proposed budget.

It’s a thought-provoking read. The proposed budget states that, “In an effort to protect classroom funding, the governor is proposing a reduction of approximately 10 percent in funding for administration, overhead and other non-instruction-related spending by school districts. [The governor proposes a] reduction of $1.2 billion targeted to school district central administration. This proposal will protect classroom spending, including spending for teachers and principals, from further reductions.”

So, while the governor proposes that school districts cut back on administrative spending during these tough economic times, the four members of the St. Helena school board who are the subject of a recall election have decided that administrators should be awarded handsome salaries and generous supplemental early retirement packages. Instead of taking a position similar to the governor’s that we need to decrease spending on administration in order to protect classroom spending, these four board members have supported and defended the view that our district needs a lot of administrators and we need to pay them substantially more than other school districts in the state.

This is not only a frivolous approach to school finance, it’s also a very short-sighted one. It’s well known that we have a well-funded school district. However, the director of the Department of Finance for California stated that our state now faces a projected budget deficit of $19.9 billion. How long will it be before the state starts taking a hard look at wealthy districts such as ours to make up for shortfalls in educational funding elsewhere? If that happens, how do these board members think our district will handle severe cuts in our funding? Will they try to take back the large retirement packages or cut back on bloated administrative salaries? Judging from their actions so far, that seems unlikely. This is one of the many reasons why the recall is so necessary.

Kathy Zelazny / St. Helena