Report Title: Are Paso Robles School Budgetary Woes a Lesson for Other Districts? Report Date: June 26, 2012 Authorized*

Governing board members overseeing the county's ten districts, similar to governing board members statewide, are offered education and training in school district budgeting and financial oversight, but seldom take maximum advantage of the workshops offered. We disagree with the statement that governing board members "seldom take maximum advantage of the workshops offered". Our current members have had a very good track record of attending all county offered professional development. New governing board members to Coast Unified have taken advantage of free training offered through the San Luis Obispo County Office of Education and attended trainings offered by California School Boards Association. Most of our current members have served longer than seven years and, due to budget constraints, professional development has been drastically reduced in order to preserve the funding in the classrooms.

Three Basic Aid districts, Cayucos, San Luis Coastal and Coast Unified, which receive revenue from local property taxes and have maintained substantial reserves, are expected to weather the current state budget crisis with minimal disruption of their education programs. We agree that the reserves required of us as a basic aid district have helped mitigate the very tough budget conditions to date, however it appears that the current five-year budget crisis has no end in sight. Therefore our disagreement is with the statement that our district has had "minimal disruption to their educational programs" and is expected to be minimally impacted by the state budget crisis. Coast Unified has lost substantial revenue from the "fair share" contributions required by the state in lieu of revenue limit reductions, as well as suffered steady property tax revenue declines during these years of economic upheaval. Over the past four years, the total amount of "fair share" reductions from the district is $1,608,145. Added to other categorical cuts made and projected "trigger cuts" that are predicted after the November elections Coast will experience a reduction of $2,261,192 or 20% over a five year span. While our educational program has continued to improve over the past five years, our class sizes have increased, our resources have been drastically reduced, and everything outside of the classroom has been maintained at minimum levels until "the budget bounces". This is a far cry from minimal disruption to date and with the end no where in sight we will be continuing to experience severe reductions. 6 . STATEMENT for RECOMMENDATION #2