General Info > Budget Crisis

Now that the propositions on the May 19 Special Election ballot have been defeated and the State of California has an enormous budget deficit that must be resolved, the question in the minds of many people in the education community is WHAT’S NEXT ???
 
Sadly, this District was forced to lay off approximately 143 teachers and is currently, in the process of reducing its classified work force.  These actions were taken on the assumption that the budget crisis would be resolved by the passage of the measures on the May 19 election. With the failure of those measures, I am informed that the budget shortfall for our District is between $8.5 and 9.5 million and we will have to make additional reductions.
 
Throughout the year we have been in negotiations with PVFT (the union representing our teachers) and CSEA (the union representing our classified employees).   We have asked both unions to consider and come to an agreement to temporarily reduce their work year with furlough days, as State employees have already done, or consider other cost savings proposals in order to preserve jobs.  To date, PVFT has refused to talk about these proposals, which forced us to cut the approximate 143 jobs in that union. On May 21, the District negotiating team met with the PVFT negotiating team and resurfaced that request.  PVFT has been proposing that the parties only negotiate certain limited issues for 2008-09—District paid release time for the PVFT President, no supervision responsibilities for teachers in any class that contains multiple grade level students or curriculum and binding arbitration.
 
The District has agreed to binding arbitration but cannot commit to spending money to support the activities of the PVFT President or excusing a substantial number of teachers from supervision duties which would shift that responsibility to other teachers.  Unfortunately, we have reached a crisis in which these issues seem minor compared to our responsibility to keep the District fiscally solvent and preserve jobs.
 
Therefore, the District has made a request to bring in a State mediator to assist the parties in reaching a resolution as soon as possible. The District does not have the luxury of time and must, for the benefit of our students, our employees and our community, solve this financial crisis.  I ask for your support and understanding in these very difficult and challenging times as we work with our Unions to achieve financial stability.