What are the district's options
for closing the budget gap?
There are two ways to close a budget gap: reduce costs or increase revenue. Each has various options, with advantages and disadvantages for the district that must be weighed carefully.
How can the district reduce costs?
Cut educational programs
| In favor | Challenges |
|---|
- Board of Education has the legal authority to act unilaterally
|
- Loss of educational services for students
- Increases class sizes
- Reduces the number of educators and staff supporting students
- Employee lay-offs; lack of collaborative process
|
Reduce employee compensation
| In favor | Challenges |
|---|
- Preserves educational services
- Protects students
- Reduces employee lay-offs
|
- Collective bargaining process requires time for Board and employee groups to reach consensus
- Failure of collective bargaining process could result in poor management-labor relations and possible work action.
- If linked to shorter school year, reduces educational services
- Loss of morale
- Decreases the district’s ability to attract and retain high quality employees
|
Close schools or other facilities
| In favor | Challenges |
|---|
- Savings (approximately $350,000 for an elementary school and $450,000 for a junior high) can be used to retain educational services
- Fewer classrooms needed with larger class sizes (greatest impact at the elementary level)
|
- Increases student populations on remaining campuses
- Reduces the number of educators and staff supporting students
- Administrative and support staff lay-offs
- Determination of which school to close divides the community and creates mistrust
- School closure is not easily reversed
- Flexibility to increase class sizes is temporary; classrooms will be needed again when district returns to lower class sizes
|
How can the district increase revenue?
Accept community donations
| In favor | Challenges |
|---|
- Temporarily retains programs for students and jobs for employees
- Community has supported fundraising campaigns
|
- Not a stable, ongoing source of funding
- Requires intensive community effort
|
Give voters the opportunity to approve new taxes
| In favor | Challenges |
|---|
- Ongoing, predictable funding source for programs and jobs
- Community has supported school parcel taxes
|
- Increases tax burden in a difficult economy
- Requires approval of two-thirds of Davis voters
- Cost of election must be paid by district
- New revenue would not be available in time to avoid program reductions in 2010-11
|
Sell property owned by the district
| In favor | Challenges |
|---|
- Temporarily retrains programs for students and jobs for employees
|
- Property must be surplus and not needed for future schools
- Not a stable, ongoing source of funding
- Property market is down
- District must agree to forego some state facility funds
- District has unmet facility needs and insufficient funding
|
What if the district spends reserve funds?
| In favor | Challenges |
|---|
- Delays cuts, temporarily retains programs for students and jobs for employees
- State has temporarily lowered the mandated reserve level
|
- With state deferring funding to districts, sufficient reserves are needed to have enough cash for payroll
- Reserves are no longer available to protect against mid-year cuts
- Insufficient cash reserves may lower the district’s credit rating making it difficult or expensive to obtain regular cashflow loans.
- Deeper cuts must be made later to bring expenses in line with revenue
- State mandated reserves must eventually be restored
- May put the district at risk if unanticipated costs arise
|
Davis Joint Unified School District
Dr. J. Quezon Hammond · Superintendent
526 B Street · Davis, CA 95616 · 530-757-5300 ·
www.djusd.net
Thank you to those who developed District Dollars!
Community volunteers:
Davis Joint Unified School District staff:
- James Hammond, Superintendent
- Bruce Colby, Associate Superintendent of Business Services
- Bob Kehr, Director of Technology
DJUSD Board of Education:
- Tim Taylor, President
- Richard Harris, Vice President/Clerk
- Sheila Allen
- Gina Daleiden
- Susan Lovenburg
Thanks to Richard Reed for the photographs of Davis school artwork.
Thank you to the Davis Community Network for their support of this project, and the Stuart Foundation for their supporting grant.
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