As The Valley Reporter goes to press on November 13, 2024, the Harwood Unified Union School District budget committee is reviewing the 190 responses to its community survey about budgeting and spending priorities.
Finance committee member Steve Rosenberg said that the survey responses showed very strong support for consolidation of schools and middle schools in particular.
“The responses about education priorities were all over the place. There’s strong support for building maintenance and a lot of worry about how to fund it. A lot people felt there are too many administrators,” Rosenberg said.
SMALL POTATOES
There was a question about specific areas to be cut which people supported in general with the exception of cutting buses for sporting events, Rosenberg said.
“There was a sense that the proposed cuts were small potatoes,” he said.
One thing that stood out, Rosenberg said, is that people were asked about creating a needs-based way for students to participate in extra-curricular activities.
“A lot people misinterpreted that to mean understand that students could only participate if they could pay,” he said.
Rosenberg said that after the committee’s meeting this week, members would determine if the full survey results would be available for the public to view.
In other Harwood budgeting news, the school district’s anticipated health care increase may not be as high as anticipated. When last discussed by the Harwood Unified Union School District board, the district’s health care costs were expected to increase 18 to 20 percent. When the school district’s finance met subsequently, on October 30, 2024, that increase had been reduced to an estimated 11.9 percent, according to district financial director Lisa Estler.
At that finance committee meeting, Estler also told committee members that, despite the decrease in potential contractual health care costs, the district may still need to cut 17-18 FTEs to achieve a budget with a three percent increase in year over year spending. That would involve cutting $2 million depending on health care costs and other factors.
