Statement provided by Fillmore Teachers Association (FUTA)

The Fillmore Unified School District Board of Education is currently considering a set of budget reductions recommended by the District Administration to balance the budget deficit that the District currently faces due to the State fiscal crisis. When the Board first started meeting this year at special Budget Study Sessions to begin this process, it was the stated goal of both Board members and the District Administration to keep the necessary cuts as far from children and the classroom as possible. This goal made sense, inasmuch as it is the purpose of the School District is to educate the children of Fillmore, Piru and Bardsdale.

As the Budget Study Sessions got underway, a series of recommendations for cuts were made. Theresa Marvel, Fillmore High School teacher and President of the Fillmore Unified Teacher’s Association (FUTA), which represents the teachers and other certificated employees of the District, regularly attended these sessions and noted which cuts were being recommended. As the weeks passed, and the recommendations mounted, it became apparent to Ms. Marvel that in contrast to the stated goal of the Board and the District, the vast majority of the cuts being recommended directly impacted children and their education.

Employees who directly work with children were being cut back. This was most obvious in the cuts to classified employees, such as special education aides, librarians, computer lab aides and others who directly work with children on a daily basis. Some of these employees’ hours were being cut back by as much as 50%, meaning that children will get 50% less help from these people who help to educate our children. Libraries will be closed more, computer labs will be left untended, and students will receive less extra attention, due to these cuts. According to School Board Member Tony Prado, all of the cuts made to classified employees could have been avoided. Meanwhile, the District decided to reduce the number of teachers in the District by five positions, meaning that classes will be more crowded, and some educational programs will be cut or curtailed.

While no one disputes that cuts are necessary, it became apparent to the FUTA that the Board and District’s stated goal of keeping cuts as far from students as possible was NOT being met. Theresa Marvel began asking the Board and District if they intended to start making cuts at the District Administration Level.

Acting upon an invitation by Board Members Prado and Garnica to present the board with suggestions for cutting district administration, FUTA researched district staffing levels at comparably sized districts within California. FUTA also researched comparisons between our district administration and those of larger unified districts within Ventura County. The FUTA President presented these findings and suggestions for reductions to the School Board at the April 21st board meeting. The preliminary conclusions have demonstrated that our district, relative to others, is overstaffed at the highest levels.

All information presented to the board was taken from the Ventura County Superintendent of Schools website: http://schooldirectory.vcoe.org and the Santa Barbara County Superintendent of Schools website: http://www.sbceo.k12.ca.us/districts/Welcome.shtml and the Tulare County Superintendent of Schools website: http://www.tcoe.org/Districts/Dinuba.shtm. These are public records and available for all to examine.

These are public records and available to all to examine. The data indicates that our District, for its size, has substantially more District administrative positions than other comparably sized districts, and that indeed, our District level administrative staffing levels are roughly equivalent with districts that have double or even four times the number of students. Materials provided to the Fillmore Gazette by Assistant Superintendent Evalene Townend and further research done by FUTA shows that Ventura Unified has approximately 130 district-level employees, which leads to the question, if four superintendents in Ventura are able to supervise that many employees, in addition to over 15,000 students, why does it take the same number of superintendents in Fillmore, a district with far fewer District employees and a much smaller overall operation?

The District, to date, has not responded to FUTA’s proposal. Neither the Board, nor the District has made any attempt to contact FUTA about the findings or FUTA’s proposal. If the Board and the District are serious about keeping cuts as far away from the students as possible, it would at least make sense that they take up the issue that the proposal has raised and examine carefully and thoughtfully what cuts need to be made at the District level to both balance the budget deficit and bring FUSD’s administrative staffing in line with other districts.

Furthermore, data provided by the District indicates that the annual earnings of our four top district administrators have all increased substantially since being hired. The Director of Business and the Director of Personnel have also been promoted to Assistant Superintendents. All raises and promotions were approved by the School Board. FUTA questions whether our elected board members are representing the community they are elected to serve by not re-organizing the District Administration office. What the Board has done instead is approve all of the recommendations of the overstaffed District Administration and made cuts not to their high paying jobs, far from the children, but to the CSEA and FUTA members who are as close to the children as you can get.

When the current Administration arrived in the District one of the goals they stated repeatedly as being of great importance and high priority was achieving pay parity with other districts in the County, as the pay in the Fillmore schools was near the bottom of the county average. Steps were taken to reach this goal of parity for teachers, as the District gave an immediate 4% raise, and guaranteed an additional 2% above the average county raise for the next two years. The District also took steps to raise the pay of administrators, although it is unclear whether they have reached parity, since if the District conducted such a parity study for administrative salaries, they never publicized it. As for classified employees, they were promised a parity study three years ago, but as of this date, it has not been completed, so the classified employees are still waiting to receive parity.

Using data provided by the District, the top four administrator salaries and the salaries of a teacher and a classified member are as follows: The Superintendent in Fiscal Year (FY) 2007-2008 received a 25% salary increase from $117,000 to $147,000. The Director of Business in FY 2007-08 received a title change and a 31% salary increase from $94,000 to $124,000. The Director of Personnel in FY 2007-08 received a title change and a 48% salary increase from $69,000 to $102,000. The Assistant Superintendent of Educational Services in FY 2007-08 received a 28% salary increase from $90,000 to $115,000. A 30 year High School Teacher in FY 2007-08 received a 4% salary increase from $73,000 to $76,000. A Special Education Aide in FY 2007-08 received a 4% raise from $16,213 to $16,937.

It is regrettable that the employees who work directly with children have suffered the heaviest cuts. How is this keeping cuts as far away from our children as possible?

Theresa Marvel, FUTA President
Chris Pavik, FUTA Bargaining Co-Chair
Ann Wade, FUTA Bargaining Co-Chair