Week in review

Exploring fee-based summer school or athletic programs while further analyzing encroachment costs of transportation and cafeteria services are among the requests the Board of Trustees made Thursday night before a recommendation to meet the $5.7 million to $9.4 million budget gap is analyzed. Using some reserves seems unlikely as trustees pointed to unknown future budget problems. Instead, the board wanted data on the number of students served by certain programs per school, an analysis of the district’s energy use and review of district efficiency.

District officials suggested making a plan that allowed for cuts to meet the range of possible scenarios. This way, if the state budget is again late and includes a need for more cuts, those reductions would already be worked out.

As currently proposed, all scenarios are based on using some one-time money, deferring the purchase of new textbooks and reducing professional development. All options take advantage of savings and one-time rebates from building solar throughout the district.

Then comes the unknown savings from items like furloughs, which would need to be negotiated, and simply cutting programs. Those possible cuts were on a long list including counselors, transportation costs, the seventh-period day, raising class sizes, eliminating deans, eliminating school resource officers and reducing library funding.

A parcel tax could also be in the district’s future. A San Mateo High parent suggested starting a district-wide foundation, an idea that would take time to get off the ground.

A recommendation will come before the board March 11 for further direction.

College cuts approved

Plans to reduce course offerings, and in turn lowering the number of positions, at three local community colleges to reduce over $7 million from next year’s budget were approved by the San Mateo County Community College Board of Trustees Wednesday.

Each school — Skyline College, College of San Mateo and Cañada College — drafted its own plan for making up the cuts which will mean less course offerings, layoffs and possibly the loss of the district’s television station, KCSM-TV. Cutting the television station has not yet been finalized. General Manager Marilyn Lawrence was given an additional month to finalize a plan to financially support the station beginning next year.

Cutting KCSM-TV was one of the largest line items at $897,000. Lawrence was originally given until Wednesday to develop a plan to fund the $1 million budget gap to keep the station going. As of earlier this month, Lawrence was halfway to her goal. On Wednesday, she was given an additional month to develop such a plan before the program is officially cut. Lawrence could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

About $7.3 million in cuts were approved from the three schools. Each college created its own list of cuts.

Cuts at the district office will reduce or eliminate 21 full-time equivalent positions, a $1.4 million savings to the district.

At the same meeting, the board moved to call for a public hearing March 10 to discuss putting a $34 annual parcel tax before voters in a June ballot.

Updated tally shows school tax wins

A seven-year renewal and $96 increase to a parcel tax benefiting the San Mateo-Foster City Elementary School District barely passed the two-thirds threshold, a win district officials say will mean fewer layoffs in the coming year.

Ballots for Measure A were due Tuesday by 8 p.m. Wednesday, updated final numbers showed 67 percent of the votes, 14,689, favored the measure. Passing Measure A will mean $6 million annually for the district but does not eliminate the need for cuts. The district anticipates $3 million to $5 million in cuts even with the measure.  

Since 1991, the San Mateo-Foster City Elementary School District has benefited from a parcel tax renewed in June 2003. The $75 parcel tax, which is now $87 due to built-in inflation, means about $2 million in annual district revenue and was set to end in 2010.

Last week the district debuted a plan to cut over 100 employees — 55 elementary school teachers, teacher support positions, counselors, psychologists, specialists, middle school elective teachers — which should not be the reality given Measure A’s passage. Cuts are still needed. The district is expected to make a vote on some budget cuts Thursday, March 4.

False date-rape drug test ends molestation case

The toxicology results on which prosecutors charged a Redwood City man with allegations he drugged his estranged wife with GHB to molest their child were deemed false, leading to the dismissal of the entire case Monday.

Prosecutors have also not ruled out criminal charges in the chain of events which led to the test results on which they based their case against Anthony John Sadek, 44. Chief Deputy District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe said he and District Attorney Jim Fox will thoroughly investigate what happened, including the conduct of a civil attorney who requested testing the hair of Sadek’s wife’ for GHB and the Houston-based forensic toxicologist Dr. Ernest D. Lykissa who found it present.

Questions about the hair test came to light late last week when prosecutor Melissa McKowan tried establishing a chain of custody for evidence in the criminal trial scheduled to begin Monday. She discovered previously undisclosed tests by an East Bay forensics analysis that tested negative for GHB. When she sought back up documentation from Lykissa to settle the discrepancy, the testing didn’t make sense, said defense attorney Geoff Carr who was appointed to represent Sadek.

In November 2007, prosecutors charged lewd and lascivious acts on a child under 14, cruelty to a child, domestic violence and poisoning. Trial was scheduled for Monday.

Instead, Carr said on Friday he received word from McKowan that she had learned of the initial testing and that Lykissa had been unable to provide sufficient backup for his results.