School Board Approves Budget, Maintaining Small Class Size

The Burlingame School District Board of Trustees approved the 2011-2012  school year budget at Tuesday night’s meeting while reinstating class sizes of 22.4 to 1, down from the 25 to 1 increase originally placed in the budget.

The budget was determined after months of discussion and prioritizing program and faculty cuts due to an $800,000 hole in funding. However, thanks to the support of the Burlingame Community for Education Foundation (BCE) and the Game On campaign, which to date has raised $420,000 for the 2011-2012 school year, the board was able to minimize funding reductions.

“The very short story…is that we’ve done a lot of work in the spring,” said Assistant Superintendent and Chief Business Official Robert Clark. “[We have a] 9.82 reserve in the 11-12 school year.”

At their , once it was clear the board had more money to work with than anticipated, members discussed reinstating physical education and music programs.

After approving the budget, the board members began prioritizing what previously cut programs to bring back if the district receives additional state funding. The district budget accounts for about $950,000 in state cuts for the upcoming school year, but this money might be returned to the district depending on tax extensions and the final state budget.

Trustees Liz Gindraux and Greg Land motioned to eliminate class size increases from 22.4 to 1 to 25 to 1, regardless of state funding, but Trustee Davina Drabkin was hesitant to reinstate any big dollar items without financial clarity.

“I think we’re in a very precarious situation for next year. It all hinges on the state,” she said. “One we know exactly what the moneys are, we do have things we can roll back.”

Gindraux argued that a main concern expressed by parents is maintaining small class sizes, and the board owes it to them after all their hard work with Game On.

“The community stepped up and raised $420,000,” she said. “I don’t know how as a board we can say thanks very much…but we’re increasing class size anyways.”

However, the trustees agreed that the community must understand keeping small class sizes is for this year only thanks to the success of Game On, and they will be raised to 25 to 1 in the upcoming years unless a parcel tax or other long term funding measures are passed.

Keeping small class sizes would bring the 2011-2012 reserves to 8.8 percent.

While the board voted to maintain class sizes, they prioritized other programs for possible reinstatement with no action.

As the budget develops over the summer, they will consider bringing back another custodian, staff development days and higher site budgets.

Gindraux said that while it was not on the list, she would like to consider adding another physical education employee as enrollment increases, a sentiment echoed by her colleagues.

“Too big really isn’t effective,” Land said. “Either you eliminate it or you help it out.”

Interim Superintendent Jud Kempson said the issue would need to be discussed with BCE, which already agreed to reinstate the life instructor position cut in the budget.

The board had previously given the ok on discontinuing the Kohl Mansion music program, cancelling the August 19 staff development day, replacing the substitute teacher caller with an automated system, reducing site budgets from $35 per student to $30 per student, discontinuing staff development throughout the school year, changing the all-call system, and eliminating one custodian position, one technical department position and the family life instructor.

The district will begin the 2011-2012 school year with $2,962,939 and expects $14,320,714 in revenues and $15,198,540 in expenditures over the year, leaving an ending balance of $2,085,144.