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Message from the Superintendent about the Budget Crisis in OUSD
February 15, 2011
Dear OUSD Employees,
OUSD faces unprecedented challenges. As we strive to improve performance and produce better outcomes for children, we have fewer and fewer resources to direct toward this task. For years now, California has dramatically reduced funding for education and asked schools to do more with less. In response, districts across the state have shortened the school year, implemented furloughs or laid-off tenured teachers in large numbers to deal with smaller budgets. OUSD, almost alone among large, California districts, has resisted this trend in order to keep cuts as far away from the classroom as possible. Unfortunately, unprecedented cuts to education funding mean we can no longer shield the classroom in the way we would like. Like our neighboring districts, we must also use the last resort of teacher layoffs to meet our financial obligations.
This is an incredibly difficult decision and it’s one of the tough choices we have to make as we try to overcome the obstacles the state has placed before us. Another year of reduced funding means we can no longer hold the line and must issue many more March 15 notices than we have in the past. Over the past 18 months, we cut $122 million from the budget. This year, we may lose $349 per student and another $12.6 million overall if some of the more painful scenarios come to pass.
Almost as damaging as funding cuts is the level of uncertainty we face. You may have heard that funding for K-12 education will remain level for the upcoming fiscal year. While that’s encouraging news, it’s based on both speculation and a large degree of optimism. The outlook for schools will worsen substantially if the Governor is unable to get a proposed tax extension measure on the ballot, or if this measure ultimately fails at the polls. In that event, the so-called flat funding–which is really a net reduction–will be transformed into a serious budget hit for school districts.
We are working to minimize the impact of this scenario, and to do so, we must be proactive. In order to avoid a crisis down the road, we are recommending that the Board of Education take several steps to:
- provide for the district’s long-term stability in order to avoid even more damaging cuts in the future.
- continue down the path to fiscal solvency and avoid a return to state receivership
- balance the budget, as required by law.
The most significant measure concerns advance notification of potential certificated layoffs. These notices, commonly referred to as March 15 notices, do not indicate that the recipient will be laid-off, only that such a possibility exists. This year, because of the tremendous uncertainty and the possibility of deep cuts, we plan to issue a significant number of notices to both certificated and classified staff. This is hard news at a time when schools and districts are already struggling to cope with reduced budgets. California’s budget crisis has forced us to make tough choices; tradeoffs that were unthinkable just a few years ago. It has also created an atmosphere of uncertainty as we wait anxiously for critical information and prepare for a number of alternative scenarios. Through all this, we will do our best to mitigate the impact on children.
It’s important to note that education is the only major portion of the state budget that has been reduced significantly since 2007-08. This comes at a time when California’s per-student K-12 funding remains among the lowest in the nation and threatens to fall even further in the national rankings. In addition, the loss of federal funds, changes in enrollment and increased costs for step-and-column increases and health benefits will require further cuts in coming years.
In this environment, we must make the best decisions possible using the information available to us. The information we have at this point indicates that we must consider layoffs and that we must send March 15 notices to a much larger percentage of our workforce than in the recent past. We do not yet know how deep the layoffs will need to be, and so in order to maintain staffing flexibility, we have to be thoughtful about managing our workforce and our expenses.
This means that more tough choices await. Please know that we appreciate the work you do in the service of children and that we will be as thoughtful as possible when making these decisions. Through it all, we will be guided by one idea: doing what’s best for students and for the long-term future of OUSD.
Sincerely,
Tony Smith, Ph.D
Please click here for a Spanish translation of this letter.
Please click here for a Chinese translation of this letter.
Please click here for a Vietnamese translation of this letter.
Please click here for a Cambodian translation of this letter.
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