MBUSD considers laying off 30 employees
The Manhattan Beach Unified School District is facing a structural budget deficit that district leaders have determined will require at least $3 million in cuts in the next year and as much as $6.1 million in reductions over the next two years. Among the budget reductions on the table are the layoffs of 30 employees.
Superintendent Mike Matthews has been signaling that difficult decisions lay ahead for the district for the past several months, beginning with a message he included in a newsletter in October that broached upcoming budget challenges. “As we officially close the books on the 2018-19 school year, and look forward to the next three years of our budget, I am, to put it bluntly, very concerned,” Matthews wrote.
Matthews said that MBUSD has managed to avoid layoffs over the last five years in part due to the passage of the $2.7 million Measure MB parcel tax and millions of dollars in funding provided by the Manhattan Beach Education Foundation. But enrollment has been on a steady decline, he wrote, while expenses have increased — especially employee pension costs, which have quadrupled, going from $2.9 million in 2011-12 to $12.2 million this fiscal year. Additionally, special education, which is supposed to be federally funded, has spiked in costs to $24 million annually while MBUSD receives only $6.4 million in funding.
“The reprieve is now at an end,” Matthews wrote. “The bottom line is that revenues are flattening while expenses continue to rise. Our retirement costs, salary costs, and health benefit costs, along with special education cost increases are far outpacing the modest increases in state revenue. That is a recipe for deficit spending.”
The result has been a diminishment of district budget reserves from 28 percent to less than 10 percent of the overall $83 million budget this year. Without cuts, Matthews said that reserves would dip below the state-mandated 3 percent by the next fiscal year.
The Board of Education conducted a budget workshop on January 15 and discussed reduction options at its January 22 meeting. At the top of a list of possible budget cuts outlined at the board meeting was the reduction of an unspecified number of K-12 staff positions, which would result in a $1.1 million savings. Also on the list are the elimination of three assistant principal positions, at a savings of $400,000; the elimination of zero period at the high school and middle school, class size increases for grades 6 through 12, and counseling reductions, each of which result in $600,000 in savings; cuts to libraries ($463,000), Physical Education ($480,000), elementary music ($495,000), reading specialists ($465,000), science specialists ($309,000), Teachers on Special Assignment ($339,000), MakerSpace ($150,000) and elementary arts ($100,000).
A revenue idea emerged at the budget workshop: soliciting more out-of-area permit students for kindergarten, which has seen the most significant decline in enrollment numbers and is a bedrock for increased enrollment in all grades. Matthews said kindergarten had dropped from as many as 440 students to as low as 350 two years ago and 380 last year. He said the district currently has few applicants seeking kindergarten permits, but that may change if the board signaled its openness to increasing permit numbers.
“I think the idea of a permit increase was a good idea,” Matthews said at the board meeting. “It wasn’t an idea on our radar before.”
Board member Karen Komatinsky cautioned that increasing permit students at a time when most school districts are struggling with enrollment numbers and the Average Daily Attendance (ADA) revenue attached to them is not a sure thing.
“Remember, California is declining,” Komatinsky said. “It’s not just us that’s declining, it’s the entire state that is declining. So in order to get those permits, at any other [grade] levels, those other school districts have to release them. And if they are in the same sort of situation we are in, they are going to be ferociously fighting to keep their numbers, just like we are going to try to draw them in.”
Matthews noted that the Palos Verdes school district has a permit process which could serve as a model for MBUSD, one that allows students with grandparents in the area to attend PV schools. He also stressed that the entire budget process was still very much in preliminary stages, with much still to be determined by the state’s budget. He said any layoffs would need to be determined by March 15, according to state law, in order to also allow for the rescinding of pink slips if the layoffs prove unnecessary once the state’s budget is finalized.
“This will be a work in progress,” Matthews said.
In an interview, Shawn Chen, the president of the Manhattan Beach Unified Teachers Association, said that the district needed to revisit its priorities.
“Essentially, the district analysis of the budget has historically differed from MBUTA’s assessment,” Chen said. “As we see it, the state budget holds reason for optimism. The natural attrition of teaching and other staff may cover some of the cuts being considered. In order to manage inefficiencies, the board and district level administration have begun to experience what MBUTA has discussed in negotiations for several years. A focus on building infrastructure without proper attention to staffing has created a difficult situation.”
“It is not the job of teachers or other staff to point out whose job should be cut,” Chen said. “We are here to support our colleagues and ensure due process for anyone whose position is threatened. It is the position of MBUTA leadership that any fiscal strain the district is currently experiencing has been on the horizon for years. Proper management of our resources is paramount at this time.”