School Board approves fund balance restoration plan with no estimates of financial savings
BY JENNIFER CABRERA
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – At their regular business meeting on April 1, the School Board of Alachua County approved a fund balance recovery plan that did not present any estimates for the amount of money that would be saved by the suggested actions.
Union update
During the union update, Alachua County Education Association (ACEA) President Carmen Ward said the next bargaining meeting will be on April 3 and the union has made a proposal for a 3.5% salary increase for teachers to counter the district’s proposal of a 1% increase. The Education Support Professionals (ESPs) previously ratified a contract for a 1.6% increase, but the teachers rejected that proposal and are now facing a reduced offer. Ward said the 1% proposal is “the lowest teacher salary raise proposal in the state of Florida. If that would be the actual settlement, that would be the lowest in the entire state of Florida. That is not acceptable, so we are going to continue to push back.”
Crystal Tessman, who is the Service Unit Director and Vice President, Instructional for ACEA, said the union needs about 100 ESPs to join the union to avoid a “costly and cumbersome” vote to avoid decertification of the union.
Board member announcements
During board member announcements, both Chair Sarah Rockwell and Member Thomas Vu said they think the district needs an AI policy to govern the ethical and responsible use of AI.
Certain’s response to teachers’ salary requests
After two teachers and three students spoke during public comment to advocate for increased teacher pay, Member Tina Certain said that Alachua County “is one of the few districts” that automatically implement a 1% step increase on July 1 of every year. She continued, “That’s not free – it’s $1.2 million… I keep hearing that we’re the least amount in the state, [but] if you combine [any future agreed-upon salary increase with the step increase], that does not put us at the bottom.”
Certain said, “We’ve heard a couple times: ‘What’s different?’ Well, Calc 3 came out, and we saw that we lost a lot more students and we saw that there was additional clawback of funds due to the increase of voucher use… Now, that’s on top of… all the poor decisions that were made.” She said the district’s allocation for a teacher salary increase was $1.8 million this year, and “we have to stay in that.”
She repeated parts of the discussion in a previous workshop about the district’s financial condition ratio, which has to stay above 3% by statute and above 5% by board policy but is currently forecast to be 4.41% without taking into account any salary increases. Certain said, “My commitment is to ensure that the four of us that are up here, that are elected, that we keep control of the district.” She said if the financial condition ratio drops below 3%, “the Department of Education will come in, and they’ll have control of the district, and every single expenditure will be approved by them.” She said employees could get even less if that happens.
Certain said that last year’s salary increase of 3.5% on top of the 1% step increase took $5 million out of the district’s fund balance (reserves) for both last year and this year, “so yeah, there are a lot of bad decisions that were made, and they’re costly, and it’s going to take time to right the ship.” She reminded the audience that she had voted against the raise: “People didn’t like that, but I knew it was going to put us here.”
Fund balance restoration plan
Superintendent Kamela Patton presented the Fund Balance Restoration Plan (click here for the document), which is required by board policy if the fund balance drops below 5% of the General Fund budget. Patton said the third Calculation Report from the State has resulted in a $6,558,539 reduction in projected General Fund revenue, and the unrestricted General Fund ending balance is now projected at 4.41%, below the threshold of 5%.
The Restoration Plan document states that the district is facing a shortfall of $1,744,598.19 to reach the 5% threshold, and Patton said the 4.41% fund balance assumes “zero raises” except for the 1% step increase that started last July.
Five immediate corrective actions were suggested: a hiring freeze for “all discretionary departmental and school-based positions” for the rest of the school year, elimination of unfilled positions, reductions in departmental budgets to “critical spending only,” suspensions of all overtime payments except on a case-by-case basis, and merging positions across departments to improve efficiency and reduce costs. However, no projected savings were listed for any of the corrective actions.
Patton said the Finance Department will bring monthly updates to the board and will revise the plan as needed.
The long-term strategy includes a comprehensive review of staffing, zero-based budgeting starting in FY2025-26, school-based budgeting based on the number of students, and conservative forecasting.
Patton concluded, “Ultimately, the idea is to get the fund balance above 5% and then continue to build that because we don’t want to sit at 5% – things happen.”
Motion
Certain immediately made a motion to “receive the report that she’s given on the Fund Balance Recovery Plan,” and Vu seconded the motion.
Public comment on the motion
During public comment on the motion, Taylor Gilfillan, who formerly worked for the district, asked whether the corrective actions would resolve the shortfall of $1.7 million. He also suggested a citizen oversight or advisory board for the budget development process “to educate and inform people along the way.”
Elementary school teacher Gina Rivera said she was a “numbers person” but didn’t understand why there is no money for raises: “Where is [the money]? What is it being spent on? How come it cannot come this way? What is the justification for it to go somewhere else?”
Armando Grundy-Gomes asked why the district is not reducing its footprint: “We have these buildings we don’t use, and you’re talking about consolidating positions and putting people on the unemployment lines, but you’re not changing your spending behaviors… We need to have a district-wide open process, looking at every asset… It is imperative we stop spending… Your people are your assets, not those buildings.”
Board discussion on the plan
After public comment, Rockwell said, “You know, as board members, we meet with Dr. Patton every week, and so nothing that she said today from the dais was new information to me. I know what she’s doing, and I know why, but I think it would be helpful to have a document that is attached to this agenda, or even a future agenda, that shows, you know, the hiring freeze is saving this much money [and so forth].”
Rockwell said she’s been asking Patton about the facilities footprint “every week for months,.. but it’s been complicated by the charter conversion situation in Newberry.” She said the rezoning effort was also complicated by the charter conversion: “You may not know this, but a charter school is a choice school, so when that school converts, every single child who currently lives in that school zone has to be assigned a new zoned school from the district. So, as you can imagine, that has put a little bit of a speed bump in a district-wide rezoning and in the potential to consolidate facilities on that side of town because now that capacity will be needed for students who don’t want to attend that charter school.”
Vu said, “When you look at some of the better districts out there, they put a lot of their budget toward instruction, toward teachers, into the classroom – 60% or above. We don’t; ours is in the 50s.”
Patton said, “We need to change our vernacular. We’re not rezoning just for finances. You rezone for one major reason: it’s the economy of scale of resources for children because when they sit so spread out, you don’t have that maximizing effect. So that’s really why we want to rezone.”
Patton also said an “unbelievable” number of people have approached her about using school buildings for affordable housing or for housing the homeless: “So it’s not just a rezoning – resources for kids first, financial second, but then what’s best for our community? Because it might be that we might need to look at some of these facilities for other people, for other purposes.”
Patton said she didn’t want a citizen budget committee, but “we need to find ways to educate the community… ‘What does capital mean? That cannot be used for salaries.'” She said if they post budget information in a way that is easily understandable, then “it’s very clear as to what can be done, what can’t be done.”
Patton addressed a rumor that is circulating about $18 million being available for “supplies”; she said, “Those are the AP funds, they’re the Cambridge funds, they’re the athletic supplements for coaches. All of those dollars are truly captured.”
The motion passed, 4-0.
It’s astounding listening to the new superintendent dazzle the school board members with incessant rhetoric but no bottom line numbers and they dutifully go along while the teachers and students continue to pay the price.
“In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made school boards.”
-Mark Twain
Elementary school teacher Gina Rivera said she was a “numbers person” but didn’t understand why there is no money for raises: “Where is [the money]?
It’s elementary – It’s in Patton’s pocketbook.
All of a sudden Vu’s a genius, “When you look at some of the better districts out there, they put a lot of their budget toward instruction, toward teachers, into the classroom – 60% or above. We don’t; ours is in the 50s.” The conclusion is “you get what you pay for.”
Certain said, “so yeah, there are a lot of bad decisions that were made, and they’re costly, and it’s going to take time to right the ship.” She never admitted she’s been responsible for those bad decisions and sank the ship. She needs to resign or be removed. She’s poison to the district.
By most accounts, although Alachua County’s teachers rank in the bottom 10% of compensation in the state, District personnel rank in the top 10%.
Here’s an easy question for teachers…
Does the District care and value me as an educational professional?
A. No
B. No, but they have us believing they do.
C. No, we just like voting for those who take advantage of us.
D. All of the above.
Next question…when are you going to do something about it?
No, the district does not value teachers or their efforts. Aside from the raises, student behavior is deplorable. Teachers are expected to tolerate so much verbal and physical abuse from students, often with no consequences for students.
Ask someone about the Clearsight testing platform that was purchased for the district for testing. Teachers were never trained on the program, but expected to utilize immediately. When teachers asked for training, it consisted of a quick and dirty hour long talking to after school.
Oh, and students received new Chromebooks at Christmas time to take home, yet in school, teachers must use the old Chromebooks to administer state assessments. You don’t have enough time to hear about all the testing day glitches on those old things!
So, no, ACPS demonstrates daily that their teachers’ efforts and worth are equivalent to a squished pop can. Teachers are and will continue to be used and abused by ACPS.
If I was a teacher in ACPS, with the innefective, and way overpaid Union Representation I have, I would sure be feeling sick about every other day of the week!
I am not a teacher but the BS from the high paid “hit man” superintendent hired to wear down and eliminate teachers sure makes me SICK!
Blame the prior board members (not the ones on the board still??), blame the prior superintendent but you voted on his raises and numbers??, blame the charter school for impeding rezoning efforts?? MY GOD! These people are truly out of touch. Stop the virtue signaling. Stop the pandering and blaming. Accept the role you and the board as a whole has done to get to this point and act like adults! Stop spending money you don’t have. Rezone the entire county as you should have done years ago. Fix our crumbling schools. And pay your teachers.
Tina Certain is blaming prior board members and superintendents because they were white. That’s her modus operandi.
The School Board of Alachua County approved a fund balance recovery plan that did not present any estimates for the amount of money that would be saved by the suggested actions (copied from Ms. Cabrera’s headliner.)
The Finance Department is going to provide MONTHLY updates on progress and revise the plan as needed? If this is such a disaster, how can the SBAC settle for monthly updates? How many District COVID based funding personnel hires have actually been cut? I think that answer is an easy ZERO! Make an impact and cut the COVID budget/supplemental funding fat!
This whole budget shortage “SBAC dumbster (not dumpster) fire” has been created by the incompetent, biased, school board, to distract voters from the money drain they are funding 100% and that is to provide day care for their “constituents” and “donors” (don’t tell me these board members are nonpartisan)! They are providing a free (no discipline) child drop off service (many of the older ones already have “career criminal” designations by Law Enforcement) for their voting base, and favorable contract decisions for their donors!
They (SBAC) aren’t worried about an estimate of savings from this plan because in a month, two at the most, they will fire the current Superintendent, find a new victim (where’s Carlee?) and start all over, resetting their “clock of no progress” once again!
I would say wake up voters, but the 35% are awake and living large while savings $$$ on their SBAC provided free daycare!
In the meantime, teachers work dual, or triple, jobs in the classroom playing translator and referee, to the “underserved group of students Certain and Rockwell are so concerned about!”
>Patton said she didn’t want a citizen budget committee
Why sure she doesn’t.
“School Board approves fund balance restoration plan with no estimates of financial savings”
Translation: They don’t know (or want to reveal) what they are doing.
Agree. I am sure they know, but they will not say it at once because it means the layoff of many people, but they don’t get rid of incompetent heads that Carlee Simon appointed, and what they have been doing is writing books but bullying people. Those are the ones who bend their needs to pray to our God, but they don’t check their demon tale is coming out of their butt.
This financial recovery plan is the equivalent of throwing a chair off the Titanic to keep it from sinking. ACPS is losing a total of $14 million in reoccurring revenue between FY25 and FY26, so they need to cut a corresponding amount of reoccurring expenses to right the ship. There are no easy ways out of this problem, but cutting overtime is a laughable response. This plan tells us all we need to know about the future of ACPS. Their runway is short and leads to a very painful outcome for those who ride it out. They need to close 3-4 schools, significantly reduce staff in inefficient/bloated departments such as Curriculum and Maintenance. Most importantly, they must stop making stupid decisions that push their students to private schools. The public school system is no longer a monopoly, yet leadership has continued to serve the interest of adults (not teachers) which has led families to seek better options. The missteps continue to mount: No behavior plan (Edwards), stupid magnet decisions (Williams), lack of support for principals and teachers, opening NEW schools (Duval), botched year-round schools (Rolle), the list is a mile long. Meanwhile private schools are building capacity and providing better educational opportunities for students, and their enrollment continues to climb.
This is a failure of leadership. Leadership from the elected officials, and an incredibly weak and self-serving administrative team. They have replaced talented and invested administrators with unqualified hacks who are just trying to collect a paycheck and not supporting those on the front lines (teachers/school leaders). Board Member Certain, to her credit, has been vocal about the changes that need to be made, yet collectively as a Board they lack any courage whatsoever. This kind of student loss requires significant structural changes throughout the district, yet at a recent budget workshop they seem to be more focused on building a new football stadium and whistling though the graveyard.
The slow and steady bleed that has been discussed for years is now a gusher, and this group of feckless leaders that have been assembled has ZERO chance of fixing this, as evidenced by this plan. I would give them 2 years tops before they are insolvent.
When you want free shit, this is what you get. Your socialism & communism are crap.
If the parents paid for the their children’s education instead of the taxpayers, there would be different results.
We’re not inventing the wheel here…
This is state paid day care.
They need to teach the ABC’s and the 123’s…..
Taxpayers who have no children in the school system should be exempt from paying school taxes on their property tax bills.
We have too many school board members. Cut back to three and give the overpaid super $60.
Either pay the teachers or get rid of them. Run the schools without teachers. Ya, that will work.
Our school board is proof that Americans have not been able to do math for a couple of generation. Board members should have to pass math and accounting tests before they run for office.
Tina Certain has an accounting degree from UF. I guess since numbers “don’t look like her” they don’t matter. Make it make sense…an accountant on the board for all of these years and yet here were are! She is an absolute disgrace for so many reasons.
😷🐽👓
The fear is an illusion, so take off your mask!
Teachers are asking for community support if anyone is able to email the school board or attend the April 3rd, 4:30 pm DAC Bargaining meeting. District Office, 620 East University Avenue, Conference Room E. East Wing.
https://www.sbac.edu/schoolboard
Another option is the escalate the frustrations and concerns with ACSB beyond the county. The more voices that are heard, the more of an impact.
https://www.fldoe.org/about-us/office-of-the-inspector-general/file-a-complaint.stml
In addition to not telling us the dollar value of the recovery plan, they also did not tell us the impact on the students. We already have a teacher shortage, especially at the SI and fragile schools. What’s going to happen now? Only 28% of the students at Rawlings are expected to be at grade level at the end of the year. Won’t it get worse with fewer teachers?
We sure don’t seem to be getting much value from Kamela Patton’s quarter-million-dollar annual compensation package.
You can’t estimate the savings from eliminating overtime, when you have the current year’s and all previous year’s data available? You can’t add up the combined target salaries for all the unfilled positions?
I give Patton a D- for this presentation, Poor Effort.
Don’t forget her handpicked HR person who for some reason left the comfy confines of Collier County as well. I wonder what their combined salaries and compensation are?
Looks like a public records request is needed – I’m sure that’ll explain what they’re not.
They delayed the rezoning because of the charter? Horse puckey. They delayed it because they know it will lead to hundreds more families leaving the district. At least the delay will give us time to find more options
The problem facing the people of Alachua County is that all the school issues fall under their responsibilities. They vote to perpetuate arrogant and incompetent board members who are so irresponsible that today, the same members who showed no acknowledgment of wise spending blame those who are not present. Lanetta must retire and remain home so the SBAC can adopt assertive thoughts and actions. Certain must go because she is divisive, irresponsible, and narcissistic.
These people are all worthless. Waste, fraud, and abuse are OK by them as long as you don’t drive a so called ‘Nazi’ car.
Certain is anti teacher, I don’t know why anyone would think anything different! She hates anything that is a “white majority” but no one has ever called her out! She is also anti Union because any concessions would be ultimately made to the white people she hates! Fear not! Certain absolutely loves white people money!
Too bad her constituents don’t read newspapers, FB, or any of the other informational web sights! Their news is fed to them from Certain!