With the effects of the budget cuts now starting to be felt, we’ve decided to create a new section in the site. We will call it “Gilbert Public Schools’ Budget Cuts Anecdotes” or simply “Budget Cuts Anecdotes.” This section will highlights notes, questions or commentaries coming from community members who are now starting to feel the pinch of the financial challenges facing the district.
If you have any “anecdotes” that you would like to share with us, please post it in our Facebook Timeline or if you prefer to be anonymous please don’t hesitate to send us a private message via Facebook or Twitter or simply send us an email: gpsbobserver{at}gmail.com.
Please let us know how the budget cuts are affecting you and your school or if you have any questions or concerns regarding the budget cuts please send it our way. We hope to hear from you.
For the first entry into the anecdotes, we thought it would be appropriate to look at how the budget cuts work. Just as a quick reminder, there are two key reasons as to why the district is in dire financial straits:
- The underfunding of Public Education by the Arizona State Legislature wherein as recently as this week a Superior Court Judge ordered the State to pay up $317 million to boost education funding for this year and up to $1.6 billion in the next 5 years.
- And of course the failed override and the refusal of the governing board majority (Staci Burk, Julie Smith and Daryl Colvin) to place the Override in the ballot this year.
You can also add a third reason, depending on how you look at it: Julie Smith still hasn’t found the magical pot of gold.
In any case, due to the budget shortfall, the district had to go through the painful Zero-based Budgeting process or ZBB. We explored the ZBB in several posts. For this entry, we will revisit that topic via a quick explaination from Tammy Salin Brady, a community member and an accountant.
There appears to be some confusion on what zero based budgeting is, or ZBB. This process took 3 administrators, 3 educators, and 3 community members to sit down by school, take a look at all the programs, fixed costs (which are items such as buildings, utilities, etc.) and variable costs, (such as AR, music programs, AP classes, sports, clubs) and determine a priority of costs. So starting at no funding, what will it cost us for an education all the way up to everything being funded in full.
So what is number one? Let’s say a building and utilities for the kids to meet in along with teachers, will get funded. All of these items are place in priorities or stacks of paper, for easy visual reference. The papers, or priorities are stacked one on top of the other, making it very easy to determine what will get cut. Each school went thru this process.
This is why some schools may or may not fund AR depending on their priority and additional federal funds (Title 1), or librarians. Some schools may decide to share an administrator to cut down on one cost such as GCA and GJHS in order to fund another. The district did the same. When AR is not being funded by your state tax dollars at the district level, it is because there is not enough money to fund the entire stack of priorities. The amount of money coming in from the state to fund an adequate education is applied to the priorities and anything that falls below that is cut.
When state tax dollars without override tax dollars do not cover all expenses, fees may increase for sports, music, and Global Academy to keep these programs running and not cut. This is the beauty and transparency of ZBB. Everyone in the community was invited to participate in this process of ZBB. Many more applied than were accommodated to participate, but all were welcome to sit in on the meetings.
If you want to know how the override not passing is going to affect your child’s education, contact the principals of your schools. They can show you what was cut last year, what has to be cut this year, and what will be up for cuts next year. The district is the same and will do the same. Dr. K and anyone else in the finance department can explain this to you. The information, as far as budgeting is concerned, is located on the district website for all to see. Zero Based Budgeting is just a tool used to navigate the painful process of cutting programs that no longer can be funded because the overrides have not passed and the state will only fund at an adequate level of education.
A quick lesson on how education is funded in Arizona. Back in the 80’s, an education funding equation was devised. This equation placed a bare minimum amount of money to fund what the state has said in their equation as an ‘adequate level’ of education, not an excellent, but adequate; hence our ranking of 50th among all the states for funding education.
They then allowed overrides to be in place to give the local communities more control over providing excellent over adequate educations. What is part of an excellent education? AP courses, sports, music, drama, other electives, clubs. Overrides passing have not been a problem in the past, only recently. An excellent education for all used to be a priority. There has been plenty of misinformation and misunderstanding about what an override is and how it is used and why it is needed.
I hope this clears up some of the confusion. I am an accountant by education and occupation. Graduated from an accounting program ranked third in the nation, I say this only to point out that I personally understand numbers and budgets.
I encourage you to become informed. Look to your candidates on the state and local levels and see who supports overrides/public education and who does not. Not just those who are running for positions tied to education, but all of the candidates statewide. Their votes and support in the past have put public education at a deficit, and if elected/re-elected will determine the future of public education. It is up to you.
Gilbert Public School Board Observer 