As a new school year begins, Burbank teachers will bring the same high degree of professionalism to our duties — the same high level of preparation, the same tireless commitment to our students, the same resolve to use our considerable skills to produce a meaningful instructional program from a curricula gone berserk with excessive testing and political dogma. What is not the same this year is the realization that Burbank teachers (and, indeed all employees) have been stiffed by the inept fiscal management of B.U.S.D.
As we begin the new school year, we must now accommodate the reality of massive layoffs to our non-teaching, educational support staff. We have no guidance advisors, and we are missing custodians, nurses, psychologists, and office personnel. All of these losses make the job of supporting students more difficult.
As a result of the continuing budget crisis, the District’s Budget Advisory Committee (BAC) continued to meet in various sub-committees during the summer to look at all contracts with a goal of reducing and renegotiating many of them. What has become clear in this process is that BTA, and all District stakeholders, must never again allow B.U.S.D. to return to a closed door, closed mind, and closed mouth system of arrogant fiscal management.
The fuzzy math, shell game of the past which allowed District leaders to spend money they didn’t have must be forever ended. There must be no undisclosed carryover pots of money which suddenly appear for the purpose of funding outside consultants, or to pad other special accounts. BTA and other employee groups should know of every penny available to the general fund and what expenditures affect the general fund.
Further, we should have a clear accounting of categorical monies and a full discussion of how categorical monies can be used to reduce general fund expenditures. No categorical programs should be initiated that require supplementation by the general fund without the full consent of BTA and District employees.
Finally, all construction related expenses must be allocated from bond funds and not supplemented by invading the general fund. This practice in the past has unfairly reduced the general fund, thus misallocating funds which should have been available for salaries and benefits.
Burbank teachers’ salaries are now firmly at the bottom quartile of teacher salaries in Los Angeles County. This is a deplorable situation that didn’t need to happen. Misdirected general fund money should have been used to prevent this situation. Our school board needs to come to grips with the fact that Burbank teachers are angry and demoralized over this situation, and are further dispirited by the ceaseless barrage of anti-education half-truths and lies being dispensed through the media by self-serving politicians and corporations who profit from this fear. Our school board is not going to make this morale problem go away with happy talk television shows.
Teachers need to see a board that is concerned and, yes, worried about the condition of teaching in Burbank. Teachers need to see real deeds that address these concerns.