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NO BAD BUDGET LEFT BEHIND
Lodi Unified's Balanced Budget … magic or did we just
take next year's funding and put it into this year's pocket?
Download New 2009/2010 Budget Below
After six months, no seven months, or is it nine months? The Lodi Unified Board finally passed a balanced budget. The question is, how'd they do it? Was this some form of magic, misdirection or mass hypnosis? I know the clock ticked away for nearly nine months, however, time seemed to stand still while Mr. Barge and a host of others month after month regaled us with fascinating stories and personal analogies against the backdrop of a kind of financial strip tease that took us from here to there, or was it there to here, I forget.
In the end, the financial analysis offered to the public by Mr. Barge and a very pleasant and soothing sounding lady who could tell you any manner of bad news that sounded better than it was just because she said it. It's a little like going to the dentist and having the Doctor's assistant tell you that that the needle she holds in her hand is going to "stick a little;" you wince in anticipated pain but you hope for the best anyway. We listened. We hoped for the best.
The most recent rendition of our financial plight was paced by Mr. Barge and a multi-media presentation where numbers seemed to fly out of nowhere onto the screen as needed then disappear into the nether-world where numbers go after they have been used for such things. The upshot being, the meeting was all about numbers, revisions to those numbers, projections and contingencies that would change all the aforementioned numbers. Then finally Mr. Barge broke the news that there could be possible changes to the entirety of all projections and a whole host of unknowables that, well, just can't be known.
The problem is, not unlike the State, Lodi Unified must (by law) balance its budget. The Feds as we all know can plunder our children's future with complete impunity. I think they call it deficit spending, or is it economic stimulus. I could give you about a trillion reasons why it maybe a bad idea, but that's another story.
Our story, the story of Lodi Unified's financial magic bullet, started many months ago and was finally buried at last Tuesday's meeting under a pile of "shovel ready" dirt. Then again, like I said, budgets (by law) must be balanced by July 1, 2009, and since the June 16th meeting would be the last of the fiscal year, time was up, the was game over, the deal was done. As Mr. Davis would advise us, either we pass a budget now or risk being taken over by the County; nobody wants that to happen, right? Well, right?
So, how was the Board able to finally get this nine-month ordeal in a shovel ready status? It's very simple really, they didn't. Sure a budget was passed, a piece of mandated legislation got voted upon. Yeh, most of us cautiously clapped when all was said and done. However, there's a catch. If you listened, not even closely, you heard Mr. Davis say in one breath "we've balanced the budget, but in the next breath he said, "The budget process will start all over again tomorrow."
Just two weeks ago, at the June 2, 2009 meeting, Mr. Davis was still threatening to divide, then subdivide the scarcity of money among all competing groups, projects, and programs whose partisanship would guarantee a fractured group of people unwilling to work together. What was the threat of the week? Oh, yeh: The libraries will be shuttered; the sports programs will need to be cut in half; and, music was on the chopping block... just to give you a few of the lowlights.
This time around Mr. Davis was very quiet, nearly mute. He didn't say much, he didn't preach, he didn't condescend, and he didn't threaten. There was no sense of entitlement, no arrogance, no elitism, no self-righteous indignation, no dismissive comments, no cursing at the crowd … no nothing this time around. Like I said, Mr. Davis is a very shrewd politician and is as close as you can get to being a career School Board member. I can only say that Mr. Davis must have a lot of civic pride...why else would anyone want to be on a school board for 17-straight years? I am being serious. Mr. Davis should be thanked for the selfless public services he so generously renders on our behalf. It's truly inspiring.
Mr. Davis is a master politician and he has already warned us that these matters, just decided and voted upon, are not over. Like they say, "it's not over until the fat lady sings" and Mr. Davis knows she hasn't even started her warm-up yet. I would never openly accuse this Board of command and control, divide and conquer by pitting one group against the other or deliberately inflating massive layoffs or threaten cherished cultural institutions like sports, music or libraries. Then again, maybe I would.
So, now "that it's over", what really happened, who won? Well the teachers got laid off to the tune of about 12% of their total number. Classified fared less well with 18% of their members being fired. How about those administrators, how did they do? Well, off hand, I'd say pretty well. Aside from a handful of people in curriculum nothing has changed much. The District still has about a 150 principals, vice principals and assistant principals. Although some assistants, assistants to assistants and their secretaries got nibbled at, that's about it. I don't think they felt our pain.
How about those top-line administrators ... the one's who have no school age children, the one's who have no contact with children or can name five children out of our 30,000 that they know outside the realm of suspending them or expelling them. Simple question, if these top-line administrators left for Bombay India for the next year, who would notice? Who would miss them? Would their sudden departure affect even one child's education or life? Seriously, as you read this article, how many top-line administrators do you know (or have even heard of)that are being fired? Would that be none?
How's none even possible? We have all heard ad-nauseam about vastly declining enrollment, we know that 12% of our teachers have gone missing, we know that 18% of the classified workers got the boot. Doesn't that mean that the administrators have less to administrate? If you have a couple of days to spare, take a look at the budget that was just passed, all 270 pages worth. Administrative positions have (in large part) been unaffected. Why's that?
The plain fact of the matter is, we have people roving around the Crystal Palace (LUSD headquarters) who have titles so long that they barely fit on a business card, but these same people cannot tell you in twenty-five words or less what they actually do. Further, in 25,000 words they could never tell you how their jobs help children learn. Why's that? Because they don't do anything that has anything whatsoever to do with teaching or learning. They write memos, send e-mails by the oodles, and they attend meaningless meetings with no particular importance to anyone but themselves. Like Lee Iaccoa said: Lead. Follow. Or, get out of the way. They refuse to do anyone of the three and that, my friend, is a problem.
So what's the final analysis … what am I struggling to say? Well, just a guess, just spit-balling here ... I think we got had, bamboozled, hoodwinked, tricked, and if you want to get a little nasty, perhaps we were defrauded. Since the garden variety fraud of which I speak is "knowing misrepresentation" maybe the word fraud will suffice. And now for the bad news…"it ain't over yet."
The last meeting was filled with nervous smiles and superficial self-serving compliments dressed-up as genuine concern. That my friends was just Act I, Scene I of a three act "Kabuki" (a Japanese drama where the players run around the stage in costumes holding bamboo polls lunging at the air with no particular meaning to anything). It's misdirection, it's a head-fake … the Board doesn't like to be watched or questioned. It's much easier to lead if people just do what they are told, right?
So, now you have been officially (or unofficially warned). With typical Davis-esque style the Board is going to start the process all over again next week. So, I have a few predictions I'd like to make, someone hold me to them, and remember where you heard it first:
First: The Board will keep cutting student-centered employees under the vague auspices of some unanticipated emergency. One of those unknowables are going to become known and you are not going to like it. I know that because they've already admitted that they robbed Peter to pay Paul. Translation, a massive shortfall in the 2010-2011 budget;
Second: They will threaten massive cuts and layoffs aimed at teachers, classified personnel, sports programs, music and summer school. They will threaten to close Clements School (again) and/or any other program, school or class that doesn't prepare your child for Harvard or Stanford and a career on Wall Street. Kids that can actually build something need not apply.
Third: The Board will talk for days, for weeks, for months regarding the need to cut from the top this time. However, in the end they will threaten you, try and intimidate you, maybe even curse at you. In the end, in the final analysis, when there is no more time for questions, answers, flotsam/jetsam or popular noise, they will do as they damn well please. That means the fatcats who make the big bucks, drive free cars, talk on free phones and have a free lunch or two are safe. Why? Well, who do you think is responsible for generating these budgets? And, just like this year, more teachers and classified will be "let go" and only the administrators who haven't toed the company line (obeyed orders from on-high) will get "pinked." Lastly, I predict that all pet projects will continue to be protected. Can everyone say "Senior Project."
A Final Thought or Two:
This board needs to know that an administrative dollar is not the same as an instructional dollar. They currently seem to be of the belief that all dollars are fungible and substitutable. More worrisome, they seem to believe the integrity of keeping top line, highly compensated administrators is more important than keeping enough teachers on the job to do the job. Lodi Unified's raison d' etre is teaching and learning not fiefdom building and lavish pay and perks. Nearly all these fine folks deliberately isolate themselves from the classroom and (by their conduct) tell us they don't give a damn about kids anyway. If you have time, look up the District's: Mission Statement, Vision Statement and stated Goals. As modest as they are, they still speak of the needs of children, not the needs of administrators. Four members of the School Board are up for re-election next year, maybe it's time for regime change.
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 LUSD-2009-2010-Budget.pdf (2,930 KB, 37 downloads)
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SeeLodi.com
