Mo Muir reelected as President, Michael Allman as Vice President
Resolution in support of school safety adopted
First interim budget accepted
Mo Muir Reelected as Board President
On December 14th, 2021, the SDUHSD held its organizational Board Meeting for the upcoming calendar year. Board officers were elected, and Trustees were assigned to standing committees.
Melisse Mossy was initially nominated by Katrina Young to be Board President, but the motion failed to pass by a 2-2 vote, with Trustees Young and Bronstein voting yes and Allman and Muir voting no. Trustee Mossy was absent.
I then nominated Mo Muir for President, and this motion passed by a 3-1 vote, with Mo Muir, Julie Bronstein and me voting yes, and Katrina Young voting no. Congratulations to Mo Muir on her election to remain Board President for another year.
Mo has proven herself to be adept at managing our Board meetings, keeping business moving forward while allowing an appropriate level of input from all Trustees and staff. Having Mo remain as President will bring stability and continuity to the Board as we navigate the remainder of this school year and assist Dr. Ward in her new role as Superintendent.
Mo and I agree that one area we can improve is to further streamline our Board meetings. Our first meeting began at 3pm Thursday afternoon and we did not finish until 11:30pm that evening. Eight-and-a-half-hour Board meetings are difficult to manage, inconvenient and tiring for all concerned. I’ve discussed with Mo ways we can improve our efficiency, and I am confident we can do better going forward.
Following the election of Mo Muir as President, I was elected as Vice President by a 3-1 vote with Trustee Young the lone dissenter. Julie Bronstein was elected as Board Clerk by a unanimous 4-0 vote. Superintendent Ward was unanimously elected as Board Secretary.
Resolution in Support of School Safety
Trustee Katrina Young introduced a draft resolution in support of school safety and to reiterate the District’s commitment to provide a safe environment for all students and staff. In the wake of recent school violence in Michigan and elsewhere, Trustee Young felt that it was appropriate to emphasize the importance of school safety.
Everyone in our community is shocked and saddened when violence happens at schools in our country, and we all agree that providing a safe learning environment is our District’s top priority.
I felt that the draft resolution provided by Trustee Young went beyond what is appropriate for a school district by advocating for specific federal legislative policies on gun control. Our job as a school district is to keep our schools safe and educate all our students to the best of our ability. Trustee Young and I negotiated changes to the language of the proposed resolution, and we reached a compromise that all the Trustees could accept. I want to thank Trustee Young for her willingness to compromise on this issue.
First interim budget accepted
The Board adopted the first interim budget for this school year and the next two years.
Our school district is what is called a “Basic Aid” district, which means that our district’s revenue from local property taxes exceeds the minimum level of funding as determined by the state of California. This in turn means that we do not receive funding from the state for our general operating expenses and are reliant only on our local property taxes to fund our general expenses.
Tina Douglas, our Associate Superintendent of Business Services, reported that she increased her forecast slightly for property tax receipts. However, even with the increased revenue forecast, the district’s operation expenses exceed our revenues, and we are forecasting a structural budget deficit of $4 to $5 million per year. In other words, we are spending $4 - $5 million more each year than what we collect in property taxes. To fund this deficit our district draws from our “reserves,” which is analogous to our savings account.
We cannot continue to spend more than our revenues, or we will run out of money. When our reserves are forecasted to fall below the state-mandated minimum of 3% of expenses, we run the risk of the government taking control of our district’s operations. Our current forecast has our reserves approaching this minimum in the third year of our forecast. We cannot continue to operate at this level of deficits and have a financially stable school district.
Other Business
The Board was updated on the mandated “late start” times that will take place next school year. By law, all our high schools will start after 8:30am, and our middle schools will start their days after 8:00am.
Reno Medina, Principal of La Costa Canyon High School, provided a report on LCC. Superintendent Ward suggested that it is likely that a lottery will be necessary next school year to move students from the San Dieguito Academy to LCC. At my direction, Superintendent Ward accepted a goal to work with LCC and other staff to attract enough schools to avoid such a lottery.
A proposed audit of the SDUHSD Foundations was postponed, providing the Foundations an opportunity to work with district staff to provide detailed financial records to support transparency and legal requirements. This will be revisited at the next regularly scheduled Board meeting.
The Board approved adding Girls Beach Volleyball as a new competitive sport at all our high schools.
The Board approved entering into a Solar Power Purchase Agreement that is forecasted to save the district money (with no capital investment) by reducing our electricity costs.
Finally, the Board instructed our legal counsel to come back to the Board with proposed changes to Board Policies that would make it easier for individual Board Trustees to add items to the agenda of Board meetings.