As Stimulus Money Dries Up, Budget Cuts Loom in School District

March 1, 2010

Forty-four Napa Valley Unified School District teachers kept their jobs this year thanks to federal stimulus funding. But next year will be different.

So-called stimulus dollars from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 reached all the public schools in the county to varying degrees last year, buying time against the full impact of state budget cuts. Most of that money is now gone, and with local schools looking at another year of reduced funding from the state, they are preparing for cuts in staffing, school days and supplies.

Stimulus funds netted the school district

$7.6 million so far — almost half of which paid teachers’ salaries for the current academic year, said Debbie Brenner, the district’s assistant superintendent for business services. Stimulus money also went to buying programs including Read 180 for struggling English students and “a variety of one-time purchases” for special education and other programs, Brenner said.

Even so, the district board voted to close three elementary schools because of an anticipated long-term shortage of funds.

Along with the campus cl osures to take place in the fall at Carneros, Capell Valley and Wooden Valley elementary schools, district officials are preparing for the prospect of shortening the academic year and seeing as many as 40 teacher layoffs in the lower grades, Sharyn Lindsey, the district’s assistant superintendent of human resources, said.

For Cindy Watter — an English teacher and union representative who began teaching at Napa High School a decade ago — the likely layoffs are a big concern.

“It’s going to be (the) younger teachers and I’m thinking of a school like McPherson, with largely a young faculty,” she said. Through trial and error, educators at McPherson Elementary School discover which techniques work best in the school’s large English-learner population.

It takes time for educators to build effective student-teacher relationships and strategies, she said, and many talented teachers are finding their jobs at risk.

“Every single school has a different culture and getting used to that culture is very important,” Watters said. “We’re talking about human beings and I’m of the belief that some people are actually irreplaceable.”

The district must issue pink slips to teachers who won’t have jobs next year by March 15.

Watter noted that half of new teachers leave the profession within five years, and wavering job security is not conducive to recruiting energetic, qualified educators.

Lindsey said in addition to potential layoffs for instructors teaching kindergarten through the third grade — increasing student-teacher ratios districtwide in those classrooms from 24-to-1 to 29-to-1 — more layoffs could be on the way for other instructors.

Of the district’s general annual budget of about $119 million, approximately $90 million goes toward salaries and benefits for all district employees.

As for stimulus dollars, Brenner said another $900,000 is on the way — roughly half of which is part of the original stimulus award that the district has yet to receive.

Napa Valley is by far the largest public school district in the county, serving some 17,000 students.

Many local schools report they’ve received only part of their stimulus awards, or received less than they expected.  

County office

Like the school district, the Napa County Office of Education is struggling to patch the budget holes stimulus money helped to fill last year.

Although the county office netted about $872,000 in stimulus money, it also served as a “pass-through” for an additional $4 million in special education funding — all of which was distributed to other educational agencies, Barbara Nemko, superintendent of the county office, said.

Stimulus dollars paid the salaries of about eight county ROP teachers, those focusing on vocational skills, according to Joshua Schultz, the county office’s chief business official.

About $24,000 in stimulus funds went to school supplies, transportation and referrals for services for homeless Napa County Office of Education students, Nemko said.

Nemko said the goal was to choose tools and supplies in line with federal guidelines to help close the achievement gap while also keeping cuts as far away from the classroom as possible.

“For next year, we are hoping not to have to do more than a minimal number of layoffs” in the ROP program, Nemko said, adding that an unspecified number of furlough days are also in the county office’s future.

A possible “second round” of stimulus money — 10 or more percent of original awards — could als o be in the works for the county office and other agencies, Schultz said.

The county office’s general annual budget is about $30 million, excluding another $15 million of special education money that the office distributes to other education agencies.

Napa Valley College

Stimulus funding offset roughly 15 percent of $2 million in state cuts to Napa Valley College’s categorical funds, according to John Nahlen, the college’s vice president of business and finance. 

Money earmarked for the so-called “categoricals” can be used only for specific programs like student services, and the limited stimulus dollars “obviously … did not make that much of an impact,” he said.

Although the college was originally slated to receive about $1.2 million, its final take was just $305,650 and college officials aren’t expecting more, Nahlen said.

This year, the college made $3.3 million in cuts to its general annual budget of about $34 million.

Next year, a combination of self-imposed cuts and added costs will set the college back at least $2.7 million, he said.

“We are keeping a close eye on what is going on in Sacramento,” he said. “(The) consensus is that things seem to get worse every day.”

Recent efforts to keep costs at bay include college officials offering retirement incentive packages and cutting courses, Nahlen said, adding that the college’s summer school program will probably be cut by half this year.

Around the county

Roughly $650,000 in additional stimulus awards went to six local small campuses and districts, including Calistoga, St. Helena and Howell Mountain.

Officials generally funneled the cash into teacher salaries and trainings, work-study financial aid programs, special education services and salaries for teachers leading after-school tutorial programs.

For example, Bill Bindewald — administrator of Napa’s Stone Bridge School — said stimulus cash paid the salaries of almost two campus teachers.

Stimulus money added about $81,000 worth of padding to the school’s general annual budget of about $2 million this year.

When it comes to next year, however, Bindewald said the school must plan on making the cuts necessary for its survival.

“We’re seriously looking at having to reduce some of our programs and looking at reducing some of our staffing as well,” he said. “We have not heard of any (new) stimulus funding that would be available for us and certainly with the state budget, we’re not seeing any other good news coming out of it.”