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March 14, 2024 Board Meeting Agenda

Posted Date: 3/11/24 (9:19 PM)
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Dear BVUSD Community,

Please see the agenda (linked below) for our board meeting on Thursday, March 14, 2023.

As you are aware, we have been working to find ways to reduce spending and ensure a balanced budget with minimal impact. Toward that end, we have a couple updates:


Budget Input Survey
First, we’d like to thank our parents and our staff for their thoughtful responses to the survey. Some respondents included comments about the quality of the survey, which was admittedly imperfect, but helpful in identifying general priorities. The results will be briefly summarized with BVUSD Trustees during Thursday's meeting, and we will share the full summary with the entire community as soon as possible (at the latest: this Monday).

New District Income!
In much-needed positive news about District finances, BVUSD has received approximately $360,000 in reimbursement dollars from facility projects in 2013. When we received the money in November, we were told the reimbursement dollars were largely restricted to facility improvement costs. After a significant amount of back-and-forth, our Business Manager was finally able to convince the state to allow the funds to return to our general fund. This is great news, as the money can now be used to mitigate potential cuts. It is important to note however, that this is a one-time reimbursement, so it does not equate to a dollar-for-dollar repair of the $475,000 ongoing deficit. Nevertheless, it allows us to employ significantly smaller-than-anticipated reductions for the upcoming year.  

Anticipated Reductions
As is reflected in the agenda linked below, we have been able to maintain the majority of our staffing in terms of Full Time Equivalency (FTE) through a combination of reclassifications, new positions, and allocation of restricted funds toward some program shifts. The difficult decision to enact any Reduction in Force is based entirely on program and/or fiscal needs and is not a reflection of the work performance or individual contributions to our district. Initial decisions reflect community input in conjunction with efforts to mitigate impact.  

Proposed Certificated Changes
At this time, we are proposing 1.0 FTE in certificated reduction and the addition of 3.2 FTE in new certificated positions. The 1.0 FTE loss is significant, but we are proposing a plan to replace it with a School Psychologist position with certifications to support special education and with the goal of having a new total of two full-time School Psychologists in the District. This provides each school site with access to a full-time School Psychologist on their campus. We are also proposing to hire two new certificated arts & music teachers with restricted Proposition 28 dollars (money that cannot fund the 1.0 FTE position in the proposed reduction).

Proposed Classified Changes
At this time, we are proposing a classified reduction of 4.066 FTE with plans to offer more than half of that FTE reduction to impacted employees in new positions. With the planned addition of 1.789 FTE in new positions and some restructuring of programs to allow restricted funds to cover another 1.0 FTE in before- and after- school intervention, we anticipate a net loss of approximately 1.277 FTE.

While we have done our best to mitigate the impact to students and classrooms, some BVUSD employees will be unfortunately impacted by the proposed changes. We would like to acknowledge their great service and the disappointment these decision create across our community. 





for the 
Bennett Valley Union School District 
Board of Trustees

All agendas for the 2023-24 school year are available at www.bvusd.org/agendas2324



     


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