Guest Opinion: The budget challenges we all face together

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Submitted by Mary Jo Carreon

Your Board of Trustees is committed to informing you with transparency on upcoming financial challenges ahead. I value our partnership and collaboration and look forward to working together with you to address these challenges.

I moved to Pleasanton 30 years ago for a teaching position and because I wanted to have my own children go to our excellent schools. My family has greatly benefited from the schools and I want to have our schools continue to be the best. There are some pressing issues that you need to be aware of.

First, all schools were given COVID funding; Pleasanton received $41,000,000 over the last four years. That money paid for additional counselors, wellness centers, additional sections and support at our schools. The federal government is no longer supplying that money even though the need remains the same.

Second, we need to attract and retain talent. Our teachers and staff make the difference in providing an outstanding education. Providing our students with effective teachers and staff is a priority so we need to have funds to compensate them.

Third, all across the state and country schools have declining enrollment. The state pays us by the number of students we have. For every loss of 100 students, we lose $1.2 million. Currently, we have a loss of 1,650 students.

Fourth, we are all feeling the effects of high inflation and low cost-of-living adjustments (COLA) from the state, where we receive the majority of our funding. For our area, inflation over the last two years is 8.1% yet the COLA provided by the state this year is only 1%.

Fifth, we are a low funded district. California uses an equity-based formula to allocate funding to school districts across the state. For Pleasanton this means that as a fairly affluent community, our funding remains stagnant regardless of how much property taxes or home prices go up. As a result, nine out of 10 districts in the state receive more money than Pleasanton.

This is not only a Pleasanton problem; districts everywhere are experiencing this loss of revenue. However, we have a community that I know will work together to address this challenge. Currently, we have a Budget Advisory Committee and they are helping us examine our budget and generating ideas for reductions and looking for creative ways to generate income.

How can you help? The main way is for you to just understand our financial situation and know that we have tough times ahead and difficult decisions we have to make. Also, I have learned over the years that our community wants to be part of the solution so if you have ideas, suggestions or questions please email us. The bigger issue is how schools are funded, so any lobbying of our elected officials would be helpful as well.

If you would like more detailed information about our budget you can go to pleasantonusd.net. Thank you for your time and support. As always we remain committed to providing the best education for our students.

Editor’s note: Mary Jo Carreon is currently serving as board president in her first term on the Pleasanton Unified School District Board of Trustees. A retired teacher with more than 25 years of experience in Pleasanton schools, Carreon is poised to start a second term on the board in December after being the only person to file for the Trustee Area 1 seat.

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