The Manhattan Beach Unified School District held a standing-room-only budget workshop last Thursday morning. The rain pouring down outside did nothing to discourage a crowd of parents, teachers and community members who packed the boardroom to hear what they feared most: the district\u2019s financial crisis has grown significantly worse since last summer.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been bleak, and getting bleaker,\u201d board trustee Wysh Weinstein said last June when the district adopted a budget requiring 31 employee layoffs and a dangerous dip into emergency reserves.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Nine months later, the district\u2019s financial situation has only gotten bleaker. Deputy Superintendent and Chief Business Officer Dawnalyn Murakawa-Leopard gave a dire budget presentation that included projections showing that without significant additional cuts, MBUSD will be $6.77 million in the red by next year and $14.35 million in the red the year after.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe budget situation that we find ourselves in now is not a new situation,\u201d Murakawa-Leopard said at the outset, clicking to a slide that displayed excerpts from three successive district budget narratives \u2014 2015-16, 2020-21, and 2025-26 \u2014 each one warning of a structural deficit and the need for ongoing expenditure reductions.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have been talking about ongoing deficit spending, a structural issue and the need to make expenditure reductions for many years.\u201d<\/p>\n
What is new is the scale. The district\u2019s unrestricted reserve, which stood at nearly 20 percent of expenditures a decade ago, has fallen to roughly 7 percent \u2014 dangerously close to the state-mandated minimum of 3 percent. And the trajectory is sharply downward.<\/p>\n
The root cause, as Murakawa-Leopard has explained many times before, is California\u2019s Local Control Funding Formula, the state education funding mechanism adopted in 2014 to prioritize districts with large populations of high-need students. MBUSD has the second-lowest percentage of such students \u2014 English learners, foster youth, and socioeconomically disadvantaged pupils \u2014 among the state\u2019s 345 unified school districts. Only 6.31 percent of MBUSD students fall into that \u201cunduplicated\u201d category, compared to a statewide average of 61 percent.<\/p>\n
The consequences are stark. MBUSD receives $11,657 per student in total LCFF funding, compared to a state median of $14,421 and a county median of $13,610. The highest-funded district in Los Angeles County receives $16,578. When all revenue sources are counted, the statewide average for unified districts is $22,125 per pupil; MBUSD receives $17,802 \u2014 a gap of more than $4,300 per student.<\/p>\n
\u201cI do want to add that the LCFF is structured this way intentionally, because the idea is that the structure provides equity,\u201d Murakawa-Leopard told the audience. \u201cThe students who are falling into the unduplicated pupil count come to school with greater needs. So this is not to criticize the structure. It is simply to point out that it creates vast funding disparities.\u201d<\/p>\n
Making matters worse, the gap has been widening. Over the past decade, LCFF revenue grew 44 percent \u2014 but the district\u2019s fixed costs, those it has little or no ability to control, grew 112 percent, an increase of $23.7 million. Pension obligations alone rose $11.9 million over that period. The district\u2019s mandatory contribution to special education grew $7.3 million. Health and welfare costs rose $3 million. Some utility costs have increased nearly 200 percent; some liability insurance costs have risen 700 percent.<\/p>\n
Murakawa-Leopard said the overall problem has been growing for a decade \u2014\u00a0 ever since the Local Control Funding Formula was enacted \u2014 but was masked by emergency funds received during the pandemic.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cPre-pandemic we were in a place where our reserves had been depleted and we were making really difficult reductions in our expenses,\u201d she said. \u201cThen the pandemic happened, and a lot of resources came into the district. There were, at the height of it, 24 new sources of one-time funding. The reason we haven\u2019t continually had to have really difficult budget situations is because of that one-time revenue.\u201d<\/p>\n
The district has long relied on the Manhattan Beach Education Foundation and local parcel taxes to partially bridge the gap. MBEF contributes approximately $7 million annually, while the Measure MB parcel tax provides another $2.5 million. Together with other local sources, 16 percent of MBUSD\u2019s budget comes from local contributions \u2014 far above the state average. But those sources are not elastic.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese funding sources have sustained this district in many foundational ways for many years,\u201d Murakawa-Leopard said. \u201cBut they don\u2019t just grow because we need more money.\u201d<\/p>\n
As an example, she noted that Measure MB originally funded more than 20 teaching positions. Today, at mid-teens and shrinking, the same dollars buy less every year. By the end of the measure\u2019s term, it may fund closer to 10 positions.<\/p>\n
The crisis deepened sharply between the June budget adoption and the First Interim report in December. Special education costs \u2014 legally mandated services the district must provide regardless of funding \u2014 surged from $3.74 million to $5.26 million in outside contractor and consultant costs alone, a $1.5 million jump. Much of that increase came from staffing agencies filling vacancies the district couldn\u2019t fill with its own employees, a phenomenon Murakawa-Leopard described as a budget shift rather than purely new spending: positions budgeted as personnel costs became services costs when they couldn\u2019t be filled in-house.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have vacancies that we know about in June, and we build our budget on the assumption that we will be able to fill every vacancy by the time we get to the start of school,\u201d she said. \u201cWhen we have vacancies that we aren\u2019t able to fill, then we sometimes need to turn to outside companies that provide us with temporary people.\u201d<\/p>\n
Special education now represents 15.6 percent of district enrollment, a figure that has been rising, tracking a national trend. The services are federally mandated under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, meaning the district has no authority to reduce them.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are legally required to provide those services,\u201d said Irene Gonzalez-Castillo, the district\u2019s special education director. \u201cThis is a federal mandate, and that\u2019s why we\u2019re required to do that, and it\u2019s the right thing to do for students who have this level of need.\u201d<\/p>\n
But MBUSD Board President Tina Shivpuri said that funding has not kept up with the special education mandate.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a Special Ed parent with a kid who has dyslexia, she needs certain accommodations in order to basically just access her education that other students don\u2019t need,\u201d she said. \u201cIt is the right and legal thing to do. But those costs are an underfunded mandate \u2014 it\u2019s given some funding, but not the entire funding that it costs.\u201d<\/p>\n
MBEF Executive Director Hilary Mahan praised the district\u2019s transparency in hosting the workshop but expressed frustration at what she called a failure to act sooner \u2014 and a failure to fight harder when the opportunity presented itself.<\/p>\n
In 2022, a citizen-led campaign called MB Citizens for Schools placed Measure A on the June ballot. The initiative would have imposed a $1,095 annual parcel tax \u2014 roughly $12 million a year \u2014 intended to bring MBUSD\u2019s per-pupil funding closer to the state average. It was defeated by a landslide, 68.8 percent to 31.2 percent, amid an aggressive and partly anonymous opposition campaign.\u00a0<\/p>\n
City Councilmember Joe Franklin, who led the formal opposition, had argued the tax was too large and too long, though he acknowledged a funding problem existed and promised to work toward a \u201cright-sized\u201d solution. That solution ended up being Measure MB, which continued the existing parcel tax at the same level rather than increasing its amount in order to account for the district\u2019s chronic underfunding and what Murakawa-Leopard repeatedly described as an oncoming \u201cfinancial cliff.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Mahan, who had warned at the time that the defeat would accelerate cuts and program losses, said Thursday that the district\u2019s own role in Measure A\u2019s failure still troubles her.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI, along with trustee Weinstein [who was Measure A co-chair, but not yet a board trustee], wholeheartedly worked on Measure A because we knew it was essential,\u201d Mahan said. \u201cBut that partnership from the district \u2014 and I will say this \u2014 was lacking in terms of expressing why we needed it. How did we come to a point where we are not working together to make something positive happen for the future?\u201d<\/p>\n
Three years later, with the financial cliff that had been warned about now fully arrived, Mahan said the pattern of deferred action had to end.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have failed to look back strategically as to how we could have prevented this,\u201d she said. \u201cYes, we can look back and say we presented three years ago that we were going to hit a financial cliff. Where was the work then? We\u2019re smart enough to stop this.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mahan said that MBEF would try once again to rise to the occasion to help. She noted that only 55 percent of the MBUSD community participates in MBEF\u2019s annual appeal.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u201cIf we got 100 percent, we would be raising well over $15 million in our community to support our schools,\u201d she said. \u201cThere are ways in which we can work together to bring this message.\u201d<\/p>\n
Aaron Kofahl, a teacher and president of the Manhattan Beach Unified Teachers Association, focused on the human and educational cost of annual layoff cycles \u2014\u00a0 not just that people will lose their jobs, but that MBUSD develops young teachers and then lays them off, a cycle that has created chronic turnover at the expense of that development.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe hire phenomenal first and second year teachers, and then every few years we lay them off, losing that investment, losing people who have come to genuinely care about their students, your kids, this community and its families,\u201d Kofahl said. \u201cWe\u2019ve come to celebrate with these families, victories, and sometimes we mourn with these families, and when we have this kind of turnover, we lose that chain of growth. We have great first and second year teachers and as soon as we hit year three, four, and five, we have a world class teaching staff \u2014 if we can keep them that long. And I feel we need to be prioritizing keeping our staff that long.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Pacific Elementary parent Ashley Pickett pressed district officials for more granular financial data, arguing that the community couldn\u2019t meaningfully engage with decisions it couldn\u2019t fully see.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need the actual underlying data,\u201d Pickett said. \u201cWe are here with you, to partner with you. We understand the constraints that you have, but this is a frustrating process when it feels like we\u2019re not given transparent data so we can be making these decisions together.\u201d<\/p>\n
The immediate steps the district has taken include freezing new travel and conference expenditures, requiring cabinet-level approval for any purchase over $500, reviewing open purchase orders, and renegotiating a staffing services contract to secure a $20,000 credit and a 10-to-15 percent rate reduction. The board will consider a Supplemental Early Retirement Plan at its Feb. 25 meeting, which could reduce costs by encouraging higher-paid employees to retire voluntarily.<\/p>\n
The situation is so dire that one question submitted in a community Q & A section of the meeting asked about closing one of MBUSD\u2019s elementary schools. Superintendent John Bowes said that solution would most likely create yet another problem.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWith an empty campus, those become available for charter schools to apply under state law,\u201d Bowes said. \u201cWe have been successful in maintaining pretty steady enrollment during a period of decreasing enrollment statewide and here in the South Bay. Closing a campus and opening it up to a potential charter school would exacerbate a declining enrollment trend in our community.\u201d<\/p>\n
The board is also exploring a new parcel tax. Polling is currently underway, with results expected at the Feb. 25 meeting.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A group including board members, MBEF, and PTA representatives is also planning a trip to Sacramento to advocate for changes to the state funding formula, particularly around special education funding. The district supports distributing a proposed one-time $2.9 billion state block grant through the base grant rather than on a needs-weighted basis, which would direct more money to districts like MBUSD.<\/p>\n
Longer-term, Murakawa-Leopard offered some hope in the form of basic aid status \u2014 the point at which local property tax revenue exceeds what the LCFF formula would provide, giving the district more autonomy over its funds. She estimated that milestone is six to 10 years away, depending on property value growth and enrollment trends.<\/p>\n
The March 15 preliminary layoff notice deadline is three weeks away. The Second Interim budget report comes to the board March 11. The district must adopt a 2026-27 budget by June 17, likely before the state finalizes its own budget. The MBUSD Board of Education will consider issuing pink slips at its meeting Wednesday night.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Weinstein closed the workshop by putting the crisis in historical context.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis has been a problem for 50 years,\u201d she said. \u201cThis is Prop 13 in 1979. We are still dealing with the unintended consequences of that. This community has been incredible since the early 80s. When we come together, we can continue to solve this problem. This is where we are. This is the reality that we all face.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Manhattan Beach Unified School District held a standing-room-only budget workshop last Thursday morning. The rain pouring down…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":144358,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[75,84,83,9,24,63],"class_list":{"0":"post-144357","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-manhattan","8":"tag-manhattan","9":"tag-manhattan-headlines","10":"tag-manhattan-news","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-city","13":"tag-nyc"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144357"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144357\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/144358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}