Government schools in San Diego are running a deficit of $124 million, but will start providing bi-lingual education, pay those teachers a bonus, while cutting back on the facilities and technology for other students. In four years they will be spending 19.1% of teachers salary to CalSTRS—money coming from education and making the deficit even larger. Health care costs are also going up. San Diego is not the only school system in financial distress. Though the voters gave approval to a $18 billion school bond ($9 billion in principal and $9 billion in interest costs), that does not pay the teachers, buy the technology or get any textbooks and other learning devices.
“Superintendent Cindy Marten assured the board that she will stay focused on the district’s priorities and honor the commitments made to students.
“We will take the approximately $1 billion budget that we do have and we will allocate those resources with these priorities in mind to make sure that we remain focused on early learning, our college and career pathways, our advanced course work, student reconnection, wellness centers, our family and community engagement work that just got started this year, to stay invested in that, our integrated student support services, and we can be sure we have school climates and cultures that are worthy of our students,” Marten said.
Lindsay Burningham, president of the San Diego Education Association, the union representing the district’s teachers, urged the board to avoid layoffs.”
The city of San Diego is also in deep trouble. Mayor Kevin Faulconer has a planned deficit of at least $124 million. Over the next four years the cumulative deficit could be close to $500 million, according to KPBS. Faulconer is also the prime mover of the effort to transfer $1.8 billion to the billionaire owner of a football team. That got defeated. Now a soccer team is coming to town and will spend one billion dollars, of their own money to build a stadium—the right way to do it. I know you might think Kevin Faulconer is a Democrat (he did not support Trump for president) but he is a registered Republican.
San Diego is a very troubled city.
San Diego Unified Forecasting $124 Million Budget Shortfall
Posted by Chris Jennewein, Times of San Diego, 1/24/17
The San Diego Unified School District will face a budget shortfall of more than $124 million for the 2017-18 school year, according to a report presented Tuesday night to the Board of Trustees.
That’s $7 million more of a deficit for the 2017-18 school year than what was estimated last month and is due to the state budget proposed this month by Gov. Jerry Brown, according to district officials.
“The governor is very concerned about uncertain times in the future,” Patricia Cook, the district’s interim chief financial officer told the board.
“He believes that a recession is inevitable, in fact, many economists believe the same thing. This has been a very booming economy for longer than the usual cycle and so everyone knows there’s a recession coming, we just don’t know when it is.”
Cook also made a reference to President Donald Trump in her presentation to the board.
“There are also changes at the federal level that could have very significant impacts on the California economy and the California budget,” she said.
Superintendent Cindy Marten assured the board that she will stay focused on the district’s priorities and honor the commitments made to students.
“We will take the approximately $1 billion budget that we do have and we will allocate those resources with these priorities in mind to make sure that we remain focused on early learning, our college and career pathways, our advanced course work, student reconnection, wellness centers, our family and community engagement work that just got started this year, to stay invested in that, our integrated student support services, and we can be sure we have school climates and cultures that are worthy of our students,” Marten said.
Lindsay Burningham, president of the San Diego Education Association, the union representing the district’s teachers, urged the board to avoid layoffs.
“At this juncture, we must prepare and discuss how our students will receive the quality education they deserve with less educators available to do so,” Burningham said. “It is of paramount importance that the district not make decisions over educator staffing levels in a rash manner.”
Board Vice President Kevin Beiser said Brown has backtracked on his commitment to California’s children.
“I just hope that we have a collective voice and that we hopefully let Governor Brown know that we really, really hope that he fulfills that commitment in a stronger way,” Beiser said.
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