Board Members –

First and foremost, we appreciate your public service and commitment to finding common ground as you make decisions that will have a direct impact on how Corbett Schools will function moving forward.

There has been a lot of conversation over the last ten days related to the budget and that is not a bad thing. The more citizens involved in a discussion about school funding issues only increases the odds of a more informed electorate. An informed electorate is an essential component of democracy.

Your options have not changed in the last ten days – you can add students, you can make cuts, or you use a combination of these methods to offset next year’s deficit. It is our hope that any debate related to which method to use includes a discussion related to sustainability for the near term and years to come.

Adding students is the easy option. It solves the immediate deficit problem and retains the current level of service. This option does not take a whole lot of imagination – we have been doing this for the last twenty years and we continue to come up short in our budget regardless of state school funding cuts. We have been dependent on welcoming more students into the District to pay for the current level of service. No doubt there are amazing, educated students graduating from Corbett High School at high rates. No doubt the entire District staff have been and continue to work extremely hard to care for and educate the student body with limited resources. Leadership within the District has explained that many teachers and staff feel maxed out at their current level of operations. Bottom line is we have not solved the repeated budget shortfalls by continuing to increase enrollment in our schools.

Making budget cuts is hard. Having fixed costs as most of your budget is going to require cuts to FTE if you choose this option. This option allows the Board to remain committed to reducing K-12 population, but we can anticipate that a restructuring of the current level of service will occur and class sizes will increase. There is $660,000 in the budget to cut but it will not come without some shared pain across the various budget categories.

Add some and cut some: Finding a middle ground can solve the problem – combining cuts to fixed cost with revenue generated from adding students gives you any number of options. It is a simple inverse relationship – to decrease cuts to fix costs you add more students and vice versa.

Other considerations:

· Resist the practice of basing any budgeting decision on money we may get. Bond, Levy, Rainy Day Fund, or Governor Brown have been mentioned at various times as revenue sources and currently they cumulatively stand at $0. Deal with the money we have – or don’t have in this case.

· Your decision will most likely impact any future ask from the voters. Bond or levy - it will not matter to those individuals who support reducing the size of the district. Increasing the size of the district after making the commitment to reduce it will have consequences at the ballot box. It is important that you factor that into your final decision.

· While you will approve a budget for this coming school year your decision will have a direct impact on future years. 1,300 students is the maximum number of slots available within the Corbett School District – adding 85 students will take us up to that point. Revenue is maximized at this point – where is your revenue source now?

· All Districts across the state, across the country, are facing cuts to funding. Yes, other schools may be starting with more in their coffers than Corbett. However, at what point does the Board stop to consider the impact on neighboring districts of Corbett School District increasing the number of charter slots available in your lottery? In a time when we are all called upon to examine, dig into and change systemic inequalities and disparities in our systems, it seems this is a moment to understand the impact of our actions on our neighboring districts.

· The current situation may provide a silver lining that was unexpected. We can anticipate the school is going to look a lot different as we move into the Fall with combinations of in-person, online, and hybrid students. Any chance we can modify what and how we do things to save a buck? – knowing that might have to happen starting next year anyway?

· Facilities safety and maintenance have been clearly identified by the board and District as high priority. Adding students to facilities that are already in need of replacement only adds Increased risk. Any students that are brought in below MS level are at risk of needing to be housed in the current middle school facility until funds have been secured to improve the Natural resource property purchased earlier this year to house the middle school until a new building can be built on campus.

We do believe that everyone involved in this discussion wants to do the right things for teachers and students of the Corbett School District. It has also become obvious that what that means depends on which side of the argument you are on in this case.

Unfortunately, circumstances have essentially turned our students into “revenue pawns”. In these discussions they've been reduced to a $7,773 check that walks through the door. Of course, these students and their families are tremendous assets to the District far beyond the dollar amount of state school funding which comes with each student. Yet, we must be honest with ourselves that at the core of the budget conversation, students have been reduced to "budget pawns". This is somewhat a function of the state school funding formula. However, we all look forward to the day when conversations about adding students evolve because we are interested in adding something to our program instead of adding kids to prevent us from cutting something. This is called being “right side up” the opposite of where we are at this point.

Respectively Submitted.

Mikaila, Jeff, and Brad

IC3S