Students shouldn't have to pay for adult problems

In the May Board Briefing, Trustees discussed how DISD spends waaaay more than its peers on outside legal counsel.  The budget use to be $6M, but we exceeded it this year.  Now it is $8M and growing - and we haven't even done a RIF.  One Trustees compared this to Houston's $2M outside counsel budget.  Good grief.

Now, consider that the Board of Trustees was told at the May Board Meeting that it would cost $7M to make a two-student change in the staffing ratios for middle schools (say, going from 27:1 down to 25:1).  Also consider that DISD attorney Jack Elrod told the Board they could not make any amendments to the Staffing formulas they were being asked to approve.

First, if DISD is spending too much on outside counsel, take that out of the non-campus budget.  It's been talked about a lot, but nothing has been said publicly about who or what is going to offset this cost, so by default, the students do.

Second, since when does the Board not get to make amendments to the staffing formulas?  DISD council told the Board last Thursday that they couldn't make any amendments to the staffing formulas presented.  What?!  So, was it illegal when it was done in May 2009?  Check it out here, go to time frame 8:08:00ish.  Not one, but two amendments!

To be fair, another parent in attendance said he thought Mr. Elrod was speaking to changing the budget, not the staffing guidelines.  Either way, the staffing could have been changed, but no one did it.  Trustee Morath pointed out that $7M could be found just by going back to the Budget 4.0 plan of cleaning schools every other day instead of every day.  (Other local districts already do that.)  But, he didn't follow it up with any amendment to change staffing formulas.

The Board didn't have to tell the Administration how to fund the staffing formulas in order to change the staffing formulas.  But, they chose not to.  They voted to expand Pre-K (good) but funded it by cutting middle schools and high schools.  The frustrating thing is they could have done right by both groups of kids, instead of choosing between them.

The Citizen's Budget Advisory Committee drafted a list of recommendations for cutting other places besides the classroom.  Keep in mind, the Committee was tasked for finding cuts to help the District trim $120M.  The recommendation also includes what to put back in if the cuts are not that big.

Guess what... they may not be.  The latest numbers out put the likely cuts at $90M.  $90M is what DISD's Budget 5.0 is based upon.  The extra $30M went to expand full-day Pre-K and... the classroom, as the Committee suggested?  No.  DISD spent it elsewhere, and they didn't implement all the Committee's suggestions.  Granted, they didn't have to.

Parents, are you out there?  Do you want your Board to set staffing of middle schools to at least 25:1?  You'd better act quickly - info on your best opportunity.

The vote to pass the Budget 5.0 Staffing Formulas with no changes was 6 -3.  See how your Trustee voted (at the very end of the video).