VALLEY CENTER: School trustees vote on layoffs

Some positions to be left vacant

By SHAYNA CHABNER - Staff Writer | Thursday, April 17, 2008 9:57 PM PDT ∞

VALLEY CENTER ---- Nearly three dozen school and district support positions were tentatively cut Thursday night when Valley Center's trustees approved a resolution that could save the district about $322,000.

The cuts, which could result in as many as 22 employees in Valley Center-Pauma Unified losing their jobs for the next school year, were unanimously approved by the board without discussion or any comments from the handful of people in the audience.

District officials had recommended the elimination of the 34 positions, which included custodians, food service employees, instructional aides and other posts in the district as one way to reduce a nearly $2.96 million budget shortfall for the 2008-09 school year, which begins July 1.

The shortfall is the result of declining enrollment and state proposed cuts to education spending.

"It just follows suit with everything else going on," board President Lori Johnson said after the meeting. "They are all hard (cuts). This was just as hard."

The subdued atmosphere Thursday night was in stark contrast to several board meetings earlier this year, where parents and teachers made emotional pleas to save their campuses and jobs.

As many as 14 of the 34 positions eliminated Thursday were already vacant, Superintendent Lou Obermeyer said. Many of the others were based on two campuses that trustees had already voted to close at the end of the year as a means of reducing spending in the next school year.

The 4,400-student district will close a one-room schoolhouse that serves families on Palomar Mountain and the Upper Elementary School, a campus for fifth- and sixth-grade students, when the school year ends in June.

Students who would have attended both of those campuses next year will be moved to nearby elementary schools that have space available because of declining enrollment throughout the district the last several years.

District officials have projected that the district's sixth year of declining enrollment could result in the loss of slightly more than a $1 million in state revenue in 2008-09. The majority of school district funding is based on the number of students in classes each day.

The district is also projecting it will have to cut an additional $1.9 million in revenues from the current fiscal year's funding of about $39.9 million because of the governor's proposed education cuts.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger presented a plan in January to cut as much as $4.4 billion from the state's spending on education to help offset a $16 billion deficit over the next 18 months.

With Thursday's approval of the support staff layoff notices, Valley Center's trustees have reduced roughly $2.1 million from the next year's budget. The remaining $800,000, they say, can be pulled out of the district's reserves of about $3.9 million.

In addition to laying off support staff and closing two campuses, the district has tightened spending for next year by eliminating two administrator positions, 11 full-time teaching posts and 11 temporary teaching employees from next year's payroll. Layoff notices were sent to those employees in March.

In other action, the board voted to publicly notify the All Tribe American Indian Charter School that it must correct issues with its reporting of student attendance and finances if it wants to continue to operate.

In a letter to the charter school, district officials say that the school has failed to maintain a balanced budget for the current and two subsequent fiscal years, accurately document its attendance hours, provide logs of the cash flow and spending of donations and to give the charter school's board sufficient time to vote on school matters.

All Tribe American must address each of the issues raised by district officials by May 7, or the Valley Center-Pauma board will take steps to revoke its charter.

Michelle Parada, a co-developer and founder of the school, acknowledged to the board Thursday night that the school has not been the best at providing "timely" information to the district, but said that employees would provide the requested information. Her request for more time to do so, however, was denied.

"Whatever the case is, whatever the decision, the things will be done," Parada said.

Contact staff writer Shayna Chabner at (760) 740-5416 or schabner@nctimes.com.

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