EDUCATION: School board authorizes up to 38 employee layoffs
by Mark McDermott
The Manhattan Beach Unified School District Board of Education authorized the layoffs of as many as 38 employees, including 33 teachers, at its February 28 meeting. Twenty of those layoffs were hoped to be rescinded if the Measure MB parcel tax was successful at the March 5 election.
Trustees expressed sadness and frustration with the circumstances the district finds itself in. MBUSD is one of the lowest funded districts in the state, a problem compounded by the state’s ballooning $73 billion budget deficit and enrollment declines most public schools experienced during and since the pandemic. The potential expiration of Measure MB further exacerbated the district’s troubling budget outlook. (The measure’s vote was undecided at press time.)
As a result, MBUSD faces an $11.3 million budget deficit, and must balance its own budget before knowing exactly what the state’s budget and its educational funding will be. Governor Gavin Newsom released his budget proposal in January but most observers believe his calculations were overly optimistic. The state budget process will not be finalized until June, but by law, MBUSD must issue pink slips by March 15.
Hence, the board voted to authorize the layoffs in a series of 4-1 votes, with trustee Bruce Greenberg voting against the resolutions because he believed reductions should have been more evenly spread among administration, classified, and certificated employees.
Board members were unanimous in their sorrow.
“I want to say I am heartbroken…We are being asked to take action that will impact some of our beloved teachers, staff, and management, and establish criteria for doing that,” said Cathey Graves, board president. “These people are the heart and soul of our district.”
Trustee Jen Fenton noted that she was the only board member who had been forced to authorize layoffs before, when the district issued pink slips in 2020.
“This is a sobering experience….I’m going to tell you, it sucks,” she said. “ I’m going to tell you it’s not fun. I’m going to tell you your voice is going to shake. I’m going to tell you that you’re going to stumble on your words and you might cry. This is the worst part of the job.”
The breakdown of the three different resolutions, all passed in 4-1 votes, was 32.8 certified employee layoffs, 5.34 classified, and one classified management position.
Greenberg objected that the layoffs impacted teachers more than the other employee groups
“It feels disproportionate,” he said. “And what I mean by that, is when I look at the headcount reduction of almost 10 percent of our certificated teachers versus 2 percent of our classified and one administrative headcount, it just doesn’t feel like we are spreading the pain evenly. It feels like we are asking the teachers to take the bulk of the pain. And while this certainly is a painful process for us this evening, we are not the ones in the trenches every day teaching the students.”
Assistant Superintendent Tom Stekol said part of the reason for the disproportionate layoff headcount is part of the revenue decline the district has to prepare for, in addition to state funding, is the expiration of the $2.5 million annually produced by the Measure MB parcel tax.
“Measure MB is exclusively to fund teachers,” Stekol said. “Had we not been facing the budget cliff from the state, we would only be contemplating teacher layoffs, because that was the only funding we would be imagining we could lose. So necessarily, there’s a disproportion.”
Measure MB’s passage, Stekol said, would allow the district to rescind 20 teacher layoffs.
“If Measure MB passes and we are able to bring back 20 teachers, then you’re seeing much more proportional layoff in anticipation of what’s happening at the state level,” he said. “Classified is only being laid off at a rate of 1.6%, certificated is 3.7%, administrative is 3%. So the numbers start to look a little more equitable when we back out the Measure MB component, because that funding is exclusively for teachers and that’s why, in a sense, we almost have two layoff contingencies.”
Fenton said that past cuts, prioritizing classrooms, pared down classified staff to levels that impacted maintenance of school facilities in a way that later cost the district more money.
“We have a structural deficit caused by the LCFF [Local Control Funding Formula], and we have increasing expenditures,” she said. “We need to make a decision. All of us wish that there was a magic solution or a wand, a unicorn, that could come in, but we’ve made cut after cut avoiding the classroom…We have looked at permits, we’ve looked at ADA, we’ve looked at enrollment. We’ve gone to Sacramento to advocate for increased base funding. We have done it all. And now we have to make a decision that will lower our spending by reducing personnel and that’s going to be felt districtwide.”
Former trustee Sally Peel, speaking during the public comment portion of the meeting, expressed outrage at the state’s ill-conceived budget process and inequitable funding formula.
“I’ve been in your shoes. I understand how schools in California are funded,” she said. “Our property taxes go to Sacramento and are redistributed. So MBUSD is among the very lowest funded districts in the state. What most people don’t know is that the state requires school districts to submit a balanced, multi year budget far before the state even tells those districts how much they will receive. It’s outrageous. I can’t imagine running a business like that.”
Trustee Wysh Weinstein noted that as a former teacher, she received pink slips three times in her career, due to the state’s helter-skelter process. She emphasized that while state funding is out of local control, voting for Measure MB and contributing to the annual Manhattan Beach Education Foundation fundraising drive represent ways to take back some measure of control.
“We are making this decision on February 28 with the facts that we have in place right now,” she said. “We don’t know how this election is going to turn out. We don’t know what the May Revise [budget] is going to look like. We don’t know what the [MBEF] annual appeal is going to end up at…If you have not yet donated to the annual appeal, do it tonight. If you feel like your family can contribute more, do it tonight. If you have not voted, do it tomorrow.”
In an interview, Hilary Mahan, executive director of MBEF, said the annual appeal has been successful in meeting its goal of providing the $6.1 million in funding MBUSD counted on from the foundation in its budgeting last year. MBEF has tried to move the bar higher, in part this year by specifying “the ask” from parents of $2,000 per student, although all donations are welcome.
“That’s one aspect of it now, can we move the bar, right?” Mahan said. “Emphasizing ‘the ask’ was a major part of trying to move that bar this year, because we have a similar percentage from year to year who contribute to that level.”
Moving that bar has proven enormously difficult. At present, Mahan said, about 48 percent of MBUSD parents meet the ask. The foundation has had to work hard just to maintain that level in the wake of the disconnection that occurred during the pandemic.
“It’s going to take time to rebuild the momentum we had before COVID,” she said. “So I don’t think moving the bar is not feasible, I am just not convinced that our community’s ready for that yet. I think the percentage of people who already give, they will give more. But it’s broadening those who give that we need to focus on, and that’s hard.”
That said, Mahan said the annual appeal is likely to exceed its goal — and the district’s budgeted amount for MBEF grants — by about 12 percent. This should help at least slightly reduce layoffs, but Mahan emphasized the foundation is not designed to fill the entire gap caused by the state’s chronic underfunding of MBUSD.
“We have engaged more and we will be able to fund more. So MBEF will once again be able to step up and fund above what the district budgeted,” she said. “Our hope is some of those pink slips can be rescinded. But the community that donates to MBEF cannot be the sole mechanism behind this. We have to rely on the broader community to support the schools that are raising our youth, that are educating these young people who are going to solve tomorrow’s challenges.”
Graves vowed to the employees who will receive pink slips later this month that the district will do everything in its power to bring them back.
“We want teachers, staff, and management to know that we promise to continue to work with our community partners — with MBEF, with MBX, the the Measure MB committee and so many other partners — to try to find a local stream of revenue to help support these positions and to bring them back. We know that you know — our mandate is to ensure the district’s financial health while maintaining a commitment to academic excellence and the social and emotional well being of our students. This is a significant challenge in these budgetary times, and we ask the community for their support in accomplishing this work.” ER