School board president Dawn Ovrom
Speaking of the environment, John Muir once said “when we try to pick out anything by itself we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.” The same could be said of school budgets. In looking at ways to cut expenses, Coronado Unified’s trustees are faced with a similar truth. Cutting one job in any area makes it adds more work to those working in other areas.
“If we get rid of the print shop, teachers will have to spend time outside their classroom [doing their own printing and costing them time with their students],” said Dawn Ovrom CUSD board president.
Cost cutting while preserving the quality of education is very much on Ovrom’s and other CUSD trustees’ minds.
At its March 4 meeting, the school board will look at ways to cut spending in the face of a $2.8 million structural deficit and smaller than expected state funding, despite the board’s recent 5-0 vote to place a $29 million bond initiative on the June ballot to eliminate the deficit and maintain current services at its meeting on February 18.
Making cuts “whether the bond measure passes or not it is the fiscally responsible thing to do when you ask people to publically fund education, Ovrom said.
As a starting point, the trustees will consider the five percent in cuts recommendations made by school administrators. The list of recommend cuts is available on CUDS’s website under Budget Facts, as well as in the school board’s February 18 agenda package.
The cuts and the bond measure are a response to a new state education funding formula, known as the Local Control Funding Formula, which the district believes threatens the quality of education in Coronado.
The school board has worked to preserve the quality of Coronado schools during the worst recession the nation has faced since the Great Depression, mainly on the backs of teachers. CUSD teachers have not receive a raise or cost of living increases during this period, and have accepted a number of furlough days reducing their pay even more.
“We have paid our dues,” said Laura Noonan, Association of Coronado Teachers (ACT) president.
Not only did teachers lose out, but many charge that the savings went to projects and people not directly related to education. Two areas commonly mentioned are consultants and the aquatics center. For example, the district works with many of consultants, “too many to count,” according to Superintendent Jeff Felix.
Ovrom, however, defends the practice. “As a small district, we don’t have expertise in every area. When we bump up against a new area, we can take the time to learn or we can bring someone in,” she said. She points to a recent example, saying, “When Sandy Hook happened CUSD didn’t know exactly what approach to take, so it hired a security team who did.”
The pool complex at the high school has long been another bone of contention. The cost of running Brain Brent Memorial Aquatics Center (BBMAC) has been a huge drain on the district’s general fund for years, although this is no longer the case. While the district is still responsible for BBMAC, it does recoup all its costs and “is not a drain on the general fund,” Ovrom said.
In all the talk about financial streams, it is important to remember that the district is hardly destitute. It will receive $247 more per student next year, a two percent increase over what it received last year and next year it expects to receive eight percent more from the state, Noonan points out.
CUSD also has resources other districts would envy. Local schools receive around one million dollars a year from the Coronado Schools Foundation, which has an additional $4.5 million in unrestricted funds.
Last September, the city council gave CUSD some $430 thousand for a “healthy children initiative,” which earmarked $91,300 for a response group, $182,600 for an elementary school counselor, $45,650 for a middle school counselor, and $11,640 for an after school homework program.
