CUSD Update
Editorial staff

In a Jan. 11 news release, the Capistrano Dispatch published the following information [with corrected figures]:

At first blush, it looks like state budget cuts will cost Capistrano Unified School District about $15 million, or 7 percent of its annual budget, Superintendent A. Woodrow Carter said during a community forum at Metro Java on Friday. Those cuts will follow two years of budget reductions at the district, which was in a pattern of deficit spending for four of the last six years. "This is a lose-lose," Carter said. "There is no win-win ... this is do less with less." He said before- and after-school programs are likely first on the block, and school officials are looking at possible cuts to electives such as PE and art.

The OC Register [“Schools brace for major cuts,” Jan. 13] put the CUSD deficit at $15 million to $20 million.

Parents in the Capo district reacted by noting this is an additional $15-million to $20-million deficit, topping the current $18-million CUSD shortfall. Some asked why administrators look first at cutting services – making reductions in programs and classes that directly affect students – instead of trimming administrative costs. Selling the partially vacant Taj Mahal administration center immediately comes to mind as a cost-cutting remedy.

Some reform-minded parents started telling the district to sell the administration center even before it was finished. Among other suggestions is to close San Juan Hills High School and reopen it at a time when it makes sense. Such a time would be when it has enough students to warrant opening the doors. Built to accommodate future homebuilding by The Ranch, families helping to populate the new high school won’t start moving in until at least two years from now. Parents of SJHHS students have joined the tug-of-war, trying to get their school finished while other schools lack such basic necessities as adequate numbers of restrooms. Increasingly, the debate is about spending money the district doesn’t have.

The OC Register article said about CUSD, “ … [the] district is optimistic that midyear cuts won’t have to be made.” A district perpetually in the red can apparently operate on hope rather than cash. School districts throughout the state that have adequate reserves might not have to make cuts, but CUSD isn’t one of them.

The outcome is predictable. Instead of cutting administrative costs (which would add up quickly to $15 million), the district will cut education, which has been trimmed to the bone. Many of the programs mentioned by administrators are already funded, at least in part, by parents.

If the new superintendent truly wants to clean house, let him deflect blame by saying, “The state budget crisis made me do it.”

Parents point to a category in the district budget, support services, where the number of employees doubled during a period of five years from 2001 to 2005. It remained approximately the same in 2006. This category alone – adding 500 employees – could be costing the district approximately $30 million annually. When the number of teachers didn’t increase during this same period, why did the district go hog wild adding administrative personnel? An example of this category is the secretary (with an annual salary of $100,000) who reported to former superintendent James Fleming. Fleming’s interim replacement made a statement to the grand jury that he didn’t know what her job entails. She’s still there.

The happy talk about optimism should have ended long ago.