Teachers union wants to know how much money is going for administrators and consultants

BY BRADEN CARTWRIGHT
Daily Post Staff Writer

The teachers’ union wants the Palo Alto school district to audit its spending on administrators and consultants before considering any budget cuts affecting classroom instruction.

Union president Tom Culbertson said state law requires districts spend at least 55% of their budget on teacher salaries and benefits, and Palo Alto currently spends 57.9%.

“It’s the other side of the equation that has gone out of balance,” Culbertson said in an interview on Wednesday.

Culbertson is pushing back on a narrative that the district’s new contract with labor unions is to blame for a proposed $33 million in budget cuts next school year.

The board agreed to give employees a 10.4% raise over two years and $10,000 in bonuses in June.

Board member Shounak Dharap said the board approved the contracts to avoid a strike as a new superintendent came in.

“We’re going to have to fire people,” Dharap said at a board meeting on Aug. 18. Culbertson said Dharap’s comments were premature and not helpful.

“We’re right at the beginning of a pretty long and dramatic process,” Culbertson said yesterday. “And I think that agitating people’s emotions right at the beginning — educators, the community, everyone’s emotions — is not really a good strategy. I have a feeling he would take those words back if given the chance.”

Superintendent Jason Glass said the district will try to avoid layoffs by not filling positions and reassigning employees.

“These conversations are going to make people scared and angry. We have to have them anyway,” Glass said at his first board meeting.

The cuts have already reached the district office as Glass has decided not to fill some administrative positions, saving $748,282 on salaries.

Culbertson said he loved the move because it’s proactive and shows a huge difference from the eight-year tenure of former Superintendent Don Austin, who added administrators as student enrollment declined

“The reality is we have (declining) enrollment and an infrastructure that is built for a lot more students… This was going to happen eventually,” Culbertson said.