MUSD is looking to reduce around $2 million to the 2024-25 district budget, Superintendent Cheryl Jordan said.
One of the main reasons why MUSD is not receiving as much state funding is because of the California 2024-2025 state deficit, MUSD Board Trustee Chris Norwood said.
AnEducatEveryWhere full-time-equivalent (FTE), 1-2 Learning & Development (L&D) FTE, and an L&D administrator are confirmed to be cut and vacant positions including a graphics organizer, payroll analyst, and MHS staff secretary will be unfilled, Jordan said.
“I will note that the Board did not go with the recommendation to reduce the NJROTC (program) by one teacher,” Jordan said. “And (during the March 13 MUSD board meeting), the Board did not go forward with the layoff of three health clerks.”
“The positions such as EducatEveryWhere, Learning and Development Teacher on Special Assignment, and Learning and Development did not result in any current staff members losing their positions,” Interim Assistant Superintendent of Human Relations Damon James said. “As a result of resignations, reassignments, and/or transfers, this had no real effect on our current employee workforce. Some positions were based on student enrollment as well as the service model being rendered, so the decisions to restructure were both cost-effective as well as beneficial to next year’s student program.”
Most of MUSD’s funding comes from the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF), Jordan said. The state uses the LCFF to calculate funding based on a district’s average daily attendance, Jordan said.
“The primary (area of decreased funding) is the Local Control Funding Formula,” Jordan said. The LCFF “is dependent upon what’s called the Cost-of-Living Adjustment (COLA), which the federal government sets and the state modifies.”
During the past few years, the COLA was really high, Jordan said. This year, it is around 8%, but for next year, Governor Gavin Newsom is projecting that it will be 0.76%, she added.
The governor is saying, based on what the COLA is going to be, MUSD will have to go into its savings, Norwood said.
“And if (MUSD) is deficit spending, meaning spending more money than they are getting in, (MUSD) will have to be super careful over the next couple of years,” Norwood said.
“Another reason for a decrease (to the budget) is the decrease in our average daily attendance,” Jordan said. “We used to be close to 97% before COVID; now we’re at about 95%. For every (additional) one percent of average daily attendance that we hit, that’s $1.4 million.”
MUSD cannot necessarily control how long it will have to cost-manage in the sense that each year, the revenue of the state determines how much money school districts will receive, Norwood said.
“For example, if next year, the governor says that the budget has a surplus, then schools won’t go into cost management; (the schools) will keep what (they) have, and maybe even be able to add something,” Norwood said. “But if the governor comes back next year and says we’re in a deficit again, then everybody gets less money and has to make decisions on how to stay fiscally sound. The school district never decides, ‘Oh, we’re going to run a budget cut.’”
MUSD projects will not be affected by the cost management plan, Norwood said.
“A part of cost management is, how do you reorganize the duties of the folks where there is going to be change?” Norwood said. “So you do a reorganization so that all the projects that were running really well continue.”
Regarding the multiple attempts to raise funding for the future, there have been local community-based organizations that make donations to schools, Norwood said. The MUSD Parent Teacher Association (PTA) is fundraising for school sites, he added.
“There’s also this thing which we did a while ago called a parcel tax,” Norwood said. “(It’s) where the community rallies around and says, ‘We’re going to support education even more and help fund additional teachers and staff.’”
There is also the possibility of reaching out to elected officials to ask where the budget line items are that are associated with education, Norwood said.
MUSD also frequently writes grants, Norwood said.
Writing grants “is a lot of hard work, but it’s worth it because we get to make sure that our kids in Milpitas get the best that we can possibly provide,” Norwood said. “Is it perfect? No. I think public education could be funded in a different way that’s more productive, but that’s a long way away.”
