School Board, Unions Lobby for Brown Tax Extensions

A coalition of teacher and employees unions from the Saddleback Valley Unified Schools – along with its elected school board – are launching an all-out lobbying effort this week to pressure legislators to put Governor Jerry Brown’s proposed tax extensions onto the state ballot this June.

“If the tax extensions are not passed, the school district would lose $10 million a year,” said Superintendent Clint Harwick, at a meeting of the school board Tuesday night. “Our district has already made $58 million in cuts over the last 3 years, including 276 positions lost. And union groups have already made $26 million in employee concessions.”

Starting Wednesday, members of four Saddleback Valley Unified unions will be contacting legislators trying to win support for Brown’s budget plan, Harwick told the board. The governor had set a self-imposed deadline of Thursday, March 10 for legislators to authorize a June special election to extend billions of dollars in taxes.

“I just can’t conceive of how devastated public education is going to be if these don’t pass,” said Lisa Eck, executive director of the Saddleback Valley Educators Association, which represents the district’s teachers.

 “All we’re doing is asking that the people get the opportunity to vote,” Board president Susie R. Swartz said after the meeting. “Balancing this budget can’t be done with cuts alone.”

The lobbying effort comes on the heels of Tuesday night’s school board meeting, where the board authorized the district to issue pink slips for more than 100 jobs for teachers, library clerks and other positions. Under a worst-case budget scenario for the 2011-12 school year, the school could close an elementary school and see class sizes balloon at both the primary and secondary grade levels.

Closing schools

The district has begun to identify schools that could be deemed “surplus property” and then closed. A list of schools being considered for that “surplus” designation could be circulated as early as this spring, and public hearings held, Harwick said after the meeting.

Layoffs

By law, the school district must notify teachers who are at risk of layoff by March 15. Often, many of those teachers are rehired after a state budget is passed and the district has a clearer picture of its finances for the coming year.

Among the employees who will be receiving pink slips are at least 18 elementary school teachers and 49 secondary school teachers, an elementary school principal, seven library media clerks, six Language Arts Assistance Program instructional assistants and a plant foreman.

The exact number of employees who will receive pink slips is unclear, as many of the jobs targeted for elimination are part time. But they add up to the equivalent of 72.3 full-time teaching positions and 30.27 full-time classified employees.

In other actions, the school board also heard a report on the state of Visual and Performing Arts education in the district, including how the district has been able to continue training teachers in this area. The board later passed a resolution proclaiming March as Arts Education Month.

The Saddleback Valley Management Team Association, California School Employees Association, and Saddleback Valley Personnel Services Association are the other unions in the coalition.