Photograph by Paolo Harris-Paz
The Berkeley Unified School District (BUSD) Board of Education approved $185,000 in budget cuts at their meeting on February 21, after deciding on approximately 1.6 million dollars in cuts on February 7.
These cuts included reductions of the consulting budget, moving the transitional kindergarten budget to elementary schools, and reducing the materials budget for homeless services.
About a year ago, Superintendent Donald Evans and his cabinet were faced with a problem. The rising costs of teacher pensions, coupled with shrinking state budget funding, forced school districts, including BUSD, to pool other sources of revenue in order to secure the retirements of teachers.
To meet the pension requirement, the district aimed to cut an estimated 1.8 million dollars for the 2018-19 school year.
In deciding what needed to be cut from the budget, Evans assembled the Superintendent’s Budget Advisory Committee (SBAC).
Comprised of students, parents, and school administrators, the SBAC drafted recommended budget cuts for the school board. Versions of the recommendations included cuts to the BHS Dean of Attendance, security officers, and Berkeley Technology Academy funding.
The Berkeley Federation of Teachers (BFT) advocated for program and employment cuts that would have a minimal impact on classrooms.
“I think that BFT was instrumental in keeping cuts as far away from the classroom as possible, this because of teachers, parents, and students coming out to the many [SBAC] meetings over the last six months, letting the district know that these cuts would be detrimental to student learning,” said BFT Vice President Matt Meyer.
Student Director Uma Nagarajan-Swenson expressed a similar sentiment regarding the impact of cuts. “By definition, it’s hard to end up satisfied with any budget cuts,” she said. “That being said, I think these cuts minimally affect school sites to the greatest possible extent.”
In light of the recent school shooting in Parkland, Florida, one cut that attracted community concern was the decision to let go of two full time security officers.
“We have to come to the decision that there we be no diminishment in safety for our students,” Daniels said. “The only way to get to the third floor of the C-Building is through the first and second floors … so not having a safety officer on the third floor is not going to have any impact on student safety, per say.”
Daniels expressed confidence that a strategic positioning of officers could be decided by Berkeley High School administrators.
The board didn’t reach the two hundred thousand dollar mark needed to bring the total cuts to 1.8 million. Since the amount of money that BUSD “loses” would fluctuate, the school board allowed the expenditure of the fifteen thousand dollars.
The cuts will take effect in the 2018-19 school year.