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By Steve Brozosky
Former Pleasanton Unified School Board trustee and former Pleasanton City Council member
As a former school board trustee and having two children go through the Pleasanton Unified School District, not to mention thousands of hours of volunteering in the schools, I am heavily involved in the local school system. We have a great school district.
Two years ago, the district ran an election for a parcel tax. I wanted to support additional funding to our school system but felt that tax would not solve the current problems.
Since that time I have spoken with school administrators and school board trustees about my concerns of current financial practices that are unsustainable and partially responsible for the problems we are seeing now. Now it is two years later, the district has another tax on the ballot while no fiscal reforms have taken place.
The main fiscal problem of the district is giving automatic raises for longevity. Teachers receive pay increases through what is called “step and column raises." These are typically 3 percent each year, costing the district an additional $1.5 million each year. Through compounding, these raises will cost $15 million over the period of the parcel tax.
When the economy was doing well, the district received additional money from the state that paid the automatic raises. Now, with the economy not doing well, we do not receive money from the state for these raises, but we still are giving raises.
What does that mean? To pay for the raises of some teachers we must fire newer teachers with less seniority, increase class sizes and cut programs.
There are several solutions to this problem and not all require approval from the unions. However, the district is not dealing with this problem. The future of our children’s education is in jeopardy unless real reforms are done now.
While the automatic raises are my biggest concern, please read the ballot arguments or go to www.PleasantonParcelTaxInfo.com for other issues like the district’s outrageous pensions.
I am voting No on Measure E and once again ask the district to do some real reforms. Our children’s future relies on it.
Sandy Piderit
7:59 am on Thursday, April 7, 2011
I'm curious -- during what years did you serve as a school board member, Mr. Brozosky? Were there any votes on teacher contracts during that time?
Steve Brozosky
9:02 am on Thursday, April 7, 2011
Hello Sandy, I served on the School Board in 2008-2009. I completed the term of Juanita Haugen when she passed away and held that seat until the subsequent election. While there might have been a vote on a teacher contract during my term, I do not remember right now. I do remember a contract change for Classified Employees.
While I was on the board I did bring up the problm of the district not having a sufficient reserve, plus a reserve that was shrinking. Juanita worked so hard to build a reserve for difficult times. I wanted to have a Board policy on the reserve so that we had some cushion when difficult times arose. I also feel the reserve should be sufficient enough to pay for step and column for a while should the State not increase in the income to the District; like we are seeing now. The Board did not want to take that discussion on then because they felt that there was not enough income to put money into reserves at that time so they wanted to postpone the discussion although they were all interested in it. However, I feel that the time to have the discussions on reserves is when times are difficult, so you can plan for the future. A plan does not require immediate funding but sets the parameters for stability.
Sandy Piderit
10:44 am on Thursday, April 7, 2011
Thank you for serving, Steve. I agree with you that higher reserves would have made it easier to weather our current economic downturn.