Bottom Line II – Hermosa’s tiny school district contemplates ‘bare bones’ instruction as Sacramento sharpens its budget ax
As Hermosa’s 1,300-student school district braces for a possible 10 percent cut to its already dwindling revenue stream, educators are studying a “bare bones” budget that would provide the minimum schooling that state law allows. In Sacramento, officials are contemplating $4.8 billion in new cuts that could chop $1 million from the Hermosa district. State education officials say the cuts become more and more likely as the governor’s plan to extend higher taxes fails to gain traction. “Really, what is a bare bones budget in Hermosa,” said Jack Burns, a school board member with three kids in the city’s schools. “Let’s just model it out and see what happens.” Burns, a business owner with a master’s degree in business administration, sits on a special committee doing something like zero-based budgeting, in which an agency disregards its current revenues and expenses, and instead tries to rebuild itself from the ground up, justifying each expense, one by one. Other committees are looking into possibilities such as merging Hermosa’s K-8 district with a larger, neighboring school district, asking voters for more money through a parcel tax, or converting one or both of Hermosa’s campuses…
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