Santa Clara County Grand Jury • 2008-2009

Fil Recommendation 1 Board ofTrustees should carefully review the benefits listed in Finding 1and:

Published: October 01, 2009 3 pages
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Note: Missing finding numbers detected: F2

Findings and Recommendations 5 findings

F1
Boards of Trustees approve overly generous benefits to themselves which include the following: • Fully paid health benefits for trustees and their families (often exceeding those of teachers and/or with no payment ceiling) • Excessive travel and conference costs • Pension contribution LASDResponse The district disagrees with thefinding. LosAltos School Districtdoes not provide health benefits for trustees normake pension contributions. Board members rarely travel orattend conferences and, when travel isrequired, board members often pay expenses out of their own pockets. FIL
Related Recommendations (1)
R1
Board ofTrustees should carefully review the benefits listed in Finding 1and: • Eliminate health benefits for Board Members SEP 302009 • Minimize travel and conference costs DAVID H.YAMASA • Eliminate pension contributions Chief Executive Ofttcer/I Superior Court of CACounty LASDResponse BY _. Asstated above, LosAltos School District already has implemented this recommendation.
F3
Superintendent salaries and increases appear to bear no relationship to the number of schools, students, and employees they oversee, nor their district's academic improvement. LASDResponse The district disagrees with thefinding. Asuperintendent's duties are very similar no matter the size of the district. Butsize isonly one of many factors determining compensation. There are many demands placed upon oursuperintendent because of the nature of our community. Oursuperintendent's evaluation (and compensation increases) does take into account student academic performance.
Related Recommendations (1)
R3
The Board of Trustees should ensure that Superintendent/Chancellor salaries and increases take into account the number of schools, teachers, and students they oversee and are tied to the district's students' progress and quantifiable metrics. LASD Response Asstated above, LosAltos School District already has implemented this recommendation.
F4
Boards of Trustees hire costly search firms to recruit successors for retiring or dismissed Superintendents/Chancellors. LASD Response The district disagrees with thefinding. The district has hired two superintendents over the last 22years. Thefirst was hired from within the district, without employing asearch firm. Thecurrent superintendent was hiredfour years ago with the assistance of a search firm, inorder to attract the best possible candidates from allover the state. Thecost to the district was approximately $20,000, which when weighed against the investment we were undertaking (finding the right person tolead our district) was a relatively minor expense.
Related Recommendations (1)
R4
Boards of Trustees should conduct apreliminary search within the local area prior to hiring search firms. LASD Response Asstated above, LosAltos School District already has implemented this recommendation. Theboardfirst looked within the district before employing asearch firm four years ago.
F5
Boards of Trustees approve the hiring of multiple private attorneys, in some casesat atremendous expense. LASD Response The district agrees with thefinding. However, the district spends considerable time determining which attorneys to use based upon areas of expertise, track record, as well as cost. We weigh the cost benefit of using one attorney over another as well as compared to county counsel. The complexities of the various issues that arise demand that wegain the best legal advice inorder to avoid ormitigate costly legal claims against the district. At alltimes we endeavor to minimize the ultimate cost to the district, inorder to spend money where wereally want to-for the benefit of ourschoolchildren and our employees.
Related Recommendations (1)
R5
All Boards of Trustees should engage County Counsel whenever possible and leverage their buying power to negotiate lower fees with private law firms. LASD Response LosAltos School District willnot implement this recommendation because itisnot warranted (see response tofinding 5).
F6
The operation of 34 K-12 school districts and four community college districts creates excessively high management and administrative costs. Five K-12 school districts have excessively high Superintendent costs per student which isreflective of the districts having only one or two schools. LASD Response The district isnot ina position to agree or disagree with thisfinding.
Related Recommendations (1)
R6
A consolidation of districts should be considered to reduce the numbers and costs of Superintendents/Chancellors, Boards of Trustees, and administrative staff and overhead. LASD Response The recommendation cannot be implemented by localboards and trustees, because under California Education Code, consolidation of school districts isrelegated to the people who liveinthe school district. Should communities wish tojoin with other communities to create larger school orcommunity college districts, the process isclearly spelled out in the Education Code, under which a vote of the electorate can change district organization. Inourcounty, voters from afew districts have chosen inthe past to consolidate, butfor the most part they have established astrong tradition and preference for local control of school districts. Thecounty office of education does provide many centralized services such as alternative schools, special education programs, finance, and technology services-all directed at reducing costs for districts. Responses prepared by the administration and governing board of LosAltos School District. Cj-dl./-1J9 (Date) 3

Additional Recommendations 1

These recommendations are not explicitly linked to specific findings.

No Responses Found 1

Government entities assigned to respond to this report. No response documents have been linked in our database.

Los Altos Elementary School District School District