2006 Budget Recap for AUSD

Teachers Say They’re Not to Blame for Budget Woes

By Ryan White, Alameda Sun, November 17, 2006

But the anger wasn’t theirs. A large number of Alameda Unified School District (AUSD) teachers turned out at the school board meeting, holding large red cards bearing the name of their respective school above their heads. They were there to protest what they say is the district’s unfair imputation that they are to blame for AUSD’s current budget crisis.

Alameda school board members were seeing red Tuesday night.

But the anger wasn’t theirs. A large number of Alameda Unified School District (AUSD) teachers turned out at the school board meeting, holding large red cards bearing the name of their respective school above their heads. They were there to protest what they say is the district’s unfair imputation that they are to blame for AUSD’s current budget crisis.

Several dozen teachers raised their red cards in unison as the teacher’s union president Earl Rivard delivered an impassioned address to the board in which he repeatedly objected to the idea that teachers were to blame for the budget shortfall.

“You have to stop taking it out on us,” Rivard said, suggesting the district was pinning blame for the deficit on teachers.

Rivard also criticized the district for failing to anticipate the then-pending arbitration settlement between the district and the Alameda Education Association, the teacher’s union, when they passed the budget last June.

The board approved a budget June 27 that avoided state sanctions by meeting the required 3 percent reserve level. The budget did not, however, fully anticipate the financial fallout from the then-ongoing arbitration between the teacher’s union and the district.

The arbitration decision, handed down to the district July 19, approved a 3.9 percent raise in teacher salaries, costing the district a total of $4.2 million and leaving a $1.4 shortfall in this year’s budget reserves.

“The result is that we’re no longer in a fiscally sound situation,” board member Mike McMahon said in an interview Wednesday.

Rivard, speaking on behalf of the teachers at the meeting, said the budget was never balanced because it didn’t take into account the money the district owes the teachers in deferred salary increases for the past two years.

“The balanced budget in June was a sham — smoke and mirrors, no balance,” Rivard said, as teachers in the audience nodded in agreement.

“The intent by both parties was to give (the teachers) their fair share while maintaining the fiscal solvency of the district,” McMahon said. “The devil is in the details of the implementation.”

McMahon points to declining student enrollment as the reason AUSD hasn’t been able to honor teacher’s contract demands while still fully funding school programs.

“The pie actually got smaller,” he said, since fewer students means less money from the state for AUSD. “The size of the pie was X when (the teacher’s union) negotiated the contract. The money got smaller because of declining enrollment.”

With fewer students, McMahon said, the district could not have agreed to the union’s salary demands over the past two years and still funded the budget without out making huge cuts.

At the Oct. 24 board meeting, AUSD Chief Financial Officer Luz Cázares presented the district’s options for closing the current $2.1 million deficit.

Much of the relief may come from $1.5 million in deferred reimbursements from the state — money the district is owed for implementing state mandated programs and requirements.

But the district will be forced to make more tough cuts in the months ahead. The board of education now has until February 2007 to figure out how they’ll reduce spending for the 2007-08 fiscal year.