BUDGET UNCERTAINTIES LEAD TO  
DRASTIC PLANS FOR LAY-OFFS

Due to laws requiring termination notification be given by March 15 to State employees that might be laid off this summer, the Redwood City School District had to give approximately 120 employees pink slips – about 80 of the positions will be teachers. At this stage it is unknown how many of these employees will really be terminated since the expected 2010-11 budget shortfall ranges anywhere from $4.7 to $13.7 million.

The district cannot wait for the state to decide what the true shortfall will be for Redwood City because the RCSD is legally required to submit a balanced budget on June 30, 2010 and it cannot rely on the state passing its own budget before that date.  If the district does not balance its budget, it will become insolvent, and the state will take over the management of the schools. 

Of course everyone suffers in these circumstances. Our kid’s education will be compromised as classes become more crowded. Due to the uncertainty, good teachers may take jobs elsewhere even if they survive the layoffs. Schools will be in a bit of chaos as the new school year starts and staffing issues remain unresolved. The only upside here is maybe this will force us to finally deal with our education budgets using long-term sustainable strategies.

Like the article I wrote about Redwood City employees, here too we have issues with education monies having to be used to make up the shortfalls in teacher’s retirement benefits. The California Employee Retirement System (CalPERS) lost billions when the stock market crashed. State employees are guaranteed fixed incomes which means if they fund is insolvent, the tax payer has to make up the difference. By the way, Wall Street makes millions every year off of managing the CalPERS funds – this will be another taxpayer bailout due to Wall Street’s incompetent greed.