Rally staged for teacher pay in San Bruno

The discussion occurred shortly after school community member rallied in front of the district office with signs declaring “pay teachers more” or “attract and retain the best” as well as clothing pins stating “you can’t put students first if you put teachers last.”

The sentiment resonated with trustees, many of whom attended the rally in a sign of solidarity with educators whose salary schedule starts at $39,000 annually and spans to $61,000, according to a three-year contract signed in 2018.

But as officials agreed that teacher pay is a critical issue to be addressed, they questioned their capacity to accommodate the calls for higher salaries on a limited budget funded primarily through local tax revenue.

“If we are looking to address the salary issues with our budget alone, we are going to fail,” Superintendent Jose Espinoza said.

With a balanced budget showing $32.3 million in revenue and expenditures for the current fiscal year, Espinoza said officials must look for alternative fashions of generating more income that could be spent on teacher salaries.

Pursuing a parcel tax and looking to the San Bruno Community Foundation for funding which would help the district start paying teachers more were among the proposals brought by Espinoza to expand the budget.

The parcel tax proposal gained broad support from trustees, who instructed Espinoza to bring the issue back for further study at a future board meeting.

“I think we need to start talking about a parcel tax,” board Vice President Andriana Shea, said.

Trustee Jennifer Blanco concurred.

“We promised that to our staff to pursue the parcel tax after the bond,” she said, referring to the Measure X infrastructure improvement initiative passed in 2018. “So we’ve got to keep our promises.”

But the parcel tax is not considered a panacea for curing all the district’s financial woes.

According to a presentation in February by a consulting firm hired to examine the issue, the district could stand to gain between $1 million annually with an $87 parcel tax or up to $2.3 million if a $199 measure was passed.

While the additional income could incrementally expand the district’s capacity to meet the calls for higher teacher salaries, some suggested that there are greater budget overhauls needed to further solidify the district’s fiscal footing.

Trustee Henry Sanchez noted that the district is paying roughly $5.5 million from its general fund this year for special education services — accounting for about 16% of the overall budget, which is considerably more than neighboring districts.

Getting special education costs under control and taking a hard look at whether the district can continue to operate small, neighborhood schools were among the critical issues raised by Sanchez that could create budget space for higher salaries.

“These are two major areas we can really address and provide compensation,” he said.

Officials also suggested that there may be spending cuts needed to establish fiscal sustainability, but Espinoza said deeper examination into the budget is necessary before making any final determination.

“We may get to cuts, but we don’t know yet,” he said.

Trustees also called on Espinoza to look for ways to trim spending on consulting services, which account for nearly $5.5 million from the general fund.

But with some essential services folded into the consulting budget, Espinoza attempted to measure expectations that any significant cost savings would be identified.

“We are looking at all of those things, but some of those things are not going to go away,” he said.

With further deliberation on the budget planned in advance of the June adoption deadline, Espinoza urged collaboration among trustees and the rest of the school community to assure the challenging issue is resolved collectively.

“We have to listen to listen to our community, we have to listen to our staff on this. That is how we are going to start to be one team,” he said.

austin@smdailyjournal.com