San Bruno Park School District officials plan to dip into reserves to cover increased expenditures partly caused by a bump to staff salaries, a decision officials said they felt comfortable making given the district’s healthy reserve fund and the need to take care of staff and student needs.
Matthew Duffy
“We will run in deficit next year which we’re doing in some ways purposely because we know we have such a large reserve and we’re going to eat into that a little bit,” Superintendent Matthew Duffy said during a Sept. 14 Board of Trustees meeting.
District officials expect to spend about $40 million next year while bringing in about $38 million of revenue, Duffy said. The deficit spending is a shift away from recent fiscal trends for the district which has typically ended a budget cycle with between $2 million and $4 million remaining, he added.
It’s possible the district may avoid deficit spending, said Duffy and Associate Superintendent Mariana Soloman, both noting the district has managed to save in the past. Either way, trustees signaled their support for dipping into the district’s reserve fund to help cover cost increases given that the funds will cover better staff pay and filling vacancies. The reserve fund is $9.5 million, about 20% of the district’s budget.
“We are spending more now because we’re rebuilding and we’re fully staffed and we’re hiring staff in special ed that we never had before and staff that we need,” said board President Andriana Shea during the meeting. “Everyone’s experiencing learning loss so I wouldn’t be opposed to using some of our healthy reserves, very healthy, healthier than we’ve ever had in this district, to help address some of the needs of our students.”
The decision came after another unanimous vote to enter into a contract with True North Research for polling services meant to gauge the public’s support for a parcel tax. The district will pay the firm $27,850 to contact a pool of potential voters over phone, text and email to encourage them to complete the online survey and to conduct at least 300 interviews to determine whether voters would support a parcel tax.
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Trustees will also use the information to determine the amount per parcel to ask for of voters and when would be best to add the tax measure to the ballot, either during the March primary or November general election next year. The board is expected to review the data and make decisions on the ballot measure this November.
The district currently does not have a parcel tax measure in place, unlike dozens of other districts in the county. Existing parcel tax measures range in amounts from $85 per parcel in Redwood City School District to about $1,417 per parcel in the Menlo Park City School District, according to numbers presented during a previous board meeting. Most parcel tax measures range between $118 a parcel to $330.
Unlike bonds which can only be used to cover infrastructure costs, parcel taxes funds can be directed toward staff salaries and programming.
“We’re excited to see how the community is receiving the school district and hope to find the data and see what the data shows us on what voters might be willing to contribute per parcel to support the district,” Duffy said “This really begins the data collection process that will help the board make a decision whether to move forward or not.”
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