South San Francisco Unified Grapples with Cuts, Reforms

February 5, 2010

SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO — Teacher layoffs, increased class sizes and other cost reductions likely await the South San Francisco Unified School District as it grapples with potential budget cuts of up to nearly $7 million.

At the same time, the district needs to kick into gear on some educational reforms, having landed on a federal list of school agencies required to improve their programs.

"We need to have staff in place" to carry out academic improvements, district Superintendent Howard Cohen said. "On the other hand, we have to cut back, so we have to be efficient and smart for the structure we use to do these reforms."

District officials largely blame a decline in property tax revenue for the shortfalls.

That income source "came in 5 percent lower than we expected," Cohen said. "That’s what set this thing off."

South San Francisco Unified is a basic aid district, drawing most of its money from property taxes. By contrast, revenue limit districts primarily rely on state funding based on their average daily student attendance.

For South San Francisco Unified, the weakened tax base has already contributed to cuts of about $1.8 million in the current fiscal year. Those cuts have come through such measures as keeping vacant staff positions unfilled and not funding principals’ budgets, Cohen said.

For 2010-11, district officials expect to sla sh $2.4 million to $2.7 million from the budget. That could mean "some teacher layoffs" and a corresponding increase in class sizes from 20 to 24 children, Cohen said.

Districts statewide have until March 15 to issue notices to teachers informing them that they could lose their jobs. They have until May 15 to rescind some or all those notices.

South San Francisco Unified could see additional losses of $500,000 to $2 million for 2010-11 depending on how the state addresses a $20 billion deficit, Cohen said.

"The state budget is a moving target," he said. "There’s no guarantee that they won’t ask us to cut more."

Despite fast-dwindling funds and resources, the district still has to undertake efforts to lift itself out of a federal program-improvement designation it received two years ago. Under this program, schools, districts and county offices of education are tagged as needing improvement if they have fallen short of achievement targets for two consecutive years.

South San Francisco Unified could lose $1.7 million a year in federal funding if it doesn’t show progress in tackling academic disparities among different groups of students, Cohen said. The reforms include making sure that all students have access to the same adopted curriculum in English-language arts and math and are given the recommended number of instructional minutes in those subjects, he said.

The district will also use $1 million in federal money earmarked for professional development to have teacher coaches work with classroom instructors on effective learning strategies, he said.

The district has set up community forums to get residents’ thoughts on the budget and reforms. The meetings, which will be held at the South San Francisco High School library, start at 6:30 p. m. Tuesday, 6 p.m. on Feb. 18 and 7 p.m. on Feb. 25.

Trustees are "committed to increasing transparency (and) involving our stakeholders at all levels of our discussion," district board President Liza Normandy said. "As we identify budget reductions, we are sharing them publicly."