Upland Unified hears update on budget [Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, Calif.]

July 17--UPLAND -- The Upland Unified School District Board of Trustees was updated Tuesday on the county's rejection of their adopted 2013-14 fiscal year budget.

The district submitted its budget in June with $7 million in deficit spending and now needs to revise the budget by Sept. 8. Superintendent Nancy Kelly said she will present the board a list of areas for possible cuts during the second meeting in August.

"I've said to everyone that comes in to speak to me about this -- as new Superintendent my goal is to resolve the structural deficit this year," Kelly said. "I do not want to have to go back to employee groups next year to ask for concessions we had to ask for this year."

The county disapproved the district's budget because the agreements reached with employees had yet to be finalized when the budget was submitted, said Michele McClowry, a fiscal adviser assigned to the district by San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools.

The district reached agreements in June with the Upland Teachers Association and the California School Employees Association with about $5.5 million in concessions.

The members of CSEA have yet to ratify their agreement, but if they do, they will be agreeing to $1.2 million in concessions.

Additionally, the county disapproved the budget because of

the language in the agreements that would allow them to expire should the district receive new funding, McClowry said.

The district's budget was given a negative certification by the San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools after finding the district would not meet its financial obligations in the next fiscal year.

In May the district was faced with a $9 million spending deficit in the 2013-14 fiscal year.

About $2 million in cuts have been made to classified, certificated, confidential and management positions, decreasing the deficit to $7 million.

The district could receive $2 million through the Local Control Funding Formula, which would reduce the deficit to $5 million.

"The $2 million won't solve your problems by itself," McClowry said to the board. "Hopefully we can get a plan in by first interim (budget report) that will give the county the indication that you're on the right track."

The board approved UTA's agreement, which has $4.3 million in concessions for the 2013-14 and 2014-15 academic years.

The teachers agreed to 9 furlough days each year, a continued increased in class size by 2 students and freeze of step and column increases, and to pay $125 toward health insurance monthly for 10 months.

Members with PPO plans will pay the difference between the lowest HMO plan and the PPO plan.

Management, confidential and classified employees already pay the difference for PPO plans, said Sherri Black, assistant superintendent of Human Resources.

"UTA was only paying 50 percent of the difference and so what UTA has done this year was brought them in line with what everyone else was already doing," Black said.

The board also approved reductions to certificated and confidential management as well as confidential employees for the 2013-14 and 2014-15 academic years.

The concessions include reduction in the work year by 14 days, reduction of one classified confidential position, elimination of step increases and a $125 contribution toward health insurance monthly for 10 months.

There will also be a reduction of one classified confidential position.

Assistant superintendents and the superintendent will also take the same amount of furlough days.

As a result, the district office will be closed the week of Thanksgiving, the two weeks of winter break and week of spring break, Black said.

District staff calculated what the "fair share" contributions would be for each of the three employee groups, Kelly said.

The management and confidential group is non-union, so there was not a need for negotiations.

"What I had done was meet last week with the representative of the management group and confidential ranks and talked about what some options were and how to best meet their fair share need," Black said.

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