Another loan from Wall Street but still no pay increases for our teachers?

At the Tuesday, September 20th board meeting the District proposed no pay increases for our teachers for the fourth straight year and ratified a controversial new contract with the staff. However, the administration budget documents show a reserve fund of $920,131 or 29.05% when the state mandated reserve is only 5%. Clearly, the money is there to at least reward our hard working teachers and staff especially when their salaries are being eaten away by inflation and class sizes and workloads are rising. Apparently, the board doesn't think so.

In fact, the early signs were present this evening that the board is giving the administration the go ahead to begin the process of preparing for another huge estimated $4-6 million bond measure for expected upgrades and repairs of the campuses. The problem is that bonds are never as they appear. By the end of the 20 or 30 year life of the bond the borrower ends up paying twice as much due to accumulated interest. Bonds lock in the borrower to paying the creditor first before all other necessities—even our children. It would be much cheaper to raise the taxes paid by the super-rich on their property in the Valley to pay for these upgrades in real dollars without having to further indebting the District to Wall Street.

Surprisingly, the administration noted that the District is still repaying the bond measure that passed in 1995 but didn't know either the correct year, the original debt or how much the District has repaid and still needs to pay. One would think they would know this information considering the administration is making the push for further debt.

It leaves me wondering who really runs this District, the board of trustees or the administration. When the administration raised the issue of the bond measure at the August meeting the board said they would take it up later. However, at the Sept. 20th meeting the administration announced that they had already begun meeting with consultants and contractors. Rather than admonish them for going off on their own without prior approval from the board two of the trustees praised them for pursuing it now because they claimed construction costs are down. 

And it was only a few short months ago that the administration told us we were in a dire crisis. Until the parent uprising that forced them to back off, they claimed we needed to lay off two teachers, kill one of the elementary school programs, eliminate the crossing guard, and cut the bus service, special education, instructional assistants, custodial and maintenance staff, and the school lunch program.