Pleasanton school board, council discuss range of topics during joint meeting

The Pleasanton City Council and school board got together last month to talk about a myriad of topics that the two agencies have been working on both individually and collaboratively.

The April 30 discussion ranged from the positive achievements of the joint collaboration such as the after-school program at the Pleasanton Public Library and the police department’s Alternative Response Unit, to the fiscal challenges both agencies are facing and how the city and district can work together to address those issues.

“It’s always uncomfortable talking about money and finances,” PUSD Board President Mary Jo Carreon said. “I’d like to see us do a little bit more collaboration as far as money. I am just feeling like some of the decisions made at the City Council … (are) going to be a financial impact to our students.”

The first major presentation the council and board listened to was about last year’s highlights on the two agencies’ successful collaborations, which included the newly developed after school program at the library.

According to Heidi Murphy, director of library and recreation at the city, the program started as a pilot at the end of last year in response to a fight that broke out at the beginning of 2023 outside of the library where a Pleasanton Middle School student was caught on video stomping another girl on the head. 

Murphy said the program now serves over 380 students each month, with most coming from PMS.

“This was born out of a health and safety initiative where we wanted to provide a sense of community, supervised activities and also tutoring services for our students,” deputy superintendent Ed Diolazo said.

Another major accomplishment that was noted during the presentation was the success of the city’s Alternative Response Unit, which is specifically dedicated to responding to mental health crisis calls.

Diolazo said the district had a high number of students being placed in police custody for mental health holds, but since the combination of an officer and clinician being brought in to address these calls, the district has seen a significant drop in juveniles being placed in mental health holds.

“It’s an amazing success story,” Vice Mayor Julie Testa said.

Outgoing Police Chief David Swing told the council and board that diversion and the school resource officer (SRO) program have also helped with there not being any juvenile custodial arrests at any PUSD campus last year.

However, as Coucilmember Jack Balch pointed out in his questions, the SRO program along with the crossing guards is one collaboration between the city and the district that will be changing in the near future and could end up hurting the district financially.

Back in March, the city voted 4-1 with Balch dissenting to move toward a cost-sharing plan where the city, which previously took care of paying the crossing guards and SRO, would move to pay 50% of the costs and the district would pay the other half.

As clarified during last month’s meeting, the city will continue to pay for both services for the next 12 months but after that, it would have to come down to whether or not the district can absorb the other 50% of costs and whether or not the city will even be at a point financially where it even can cover its half or if it will have to put the entire burden on the district.

“As you’re all aware, it’s not just cities. School districts also are suffering financially in the current state budget and so any increase in expenditure will be very difficult for the district to support,” Superintendent David Haglund said.

Another point of contention that Balch brought up was the city’s upcoming ban on gas-powered leaf blowers, which takes effect on June 1.

As Balch asked what the district’s plan was to make the conversion to leaf blowers not powered by gas, assistant superintendent of business services Ahmad Sheikholeslami said that it will be an issue for PUSD but that staff are looking at different options and looking for grants to help fund the conversion.

“One of the issues we’re also looking at is the technology is still catching up in that industry,” Sheikholeslami said. “The units are very heavy, so that is also a concern.”

He also said he doesn’t know how much the district’s budget will be affected due to that ban.

Speaking about other financial challenges, Sheikholeslami along with the city’s finance director Susan Hsieh spent the next portion of the meeting talking about the financial challenges the two agencies have been facing following the pandemic and how both are seeing similar issues with increased expenditures and a decrease in revenues.

One of the biggest expenditures for both the city and the district has been salaries and benefits.

“Similar to the percentage of your budget with salaries and benefits, I think it’s similar with the city,” Councilmember Valerie Arkin said. “We are kind of in that same boat in that regard.”

And while both are doing everything from looking at services the city might have to cut to the district looking to cut positions and lay off employees, both agencies have also been looking at other potential revenue streams.

Hsieh reminded the room that the city has been engaging with the community to see if there would be any support with placing a half-cent sales tax measure in the upcoming November ballot to help combat the city’s flat sales tax and virtual loss of hotel tax revenues.

On the other hand, Sheikholeslami talked about how apart from local donations, the district and community can increase funding through a parcel tax. He said no decisions have been made on that front either but that the district is putting together data in order to figure out whether there is an interest for a community-led parcel tax to be placed on the ballot or for the district to vote on it, which would need a two-thirds majority vote.

However, many of the councilmembers and trustees agreed that putting both a parcel tax and a sales tax measure in front of voters might hurt the chances of either getting approved.

“We should not have competing measures,” Arkin said. “If we have competing measures, I think you will find consultants that will say you’re very likely going to sink both of them because people will not want to vote for two things.”

“We just had a whole thing on collaboration and I think we should not compete,” Arkin added. “We should work together.”

Apart from the projected deficits from both the city and the district and the potential negative impacts those would have on both if they don’t find some solutions, the district and city staff also reviewed the collaborative work between the city’s planning department and how the district has used that work to change its elementary, middle and high school boundaries in the past year.

They also went over how more housing, which could come thanks to the city adopting its sixth cycle Housing Element, could bring in the much needed families and students to help alleviate some of the district’s fiscal issues given the fact that most of its revenue comes from student enrollment, which has decreased significantly over the past few years.

“Our housing costs are higher so it is harder for younger families to move in,” Sheikholeslami said. 

He also touched on the future plans for workforce housing, which was originally planned to be considered at the old district office property located at Bernal Avenue. However, Sheikholeslami said that with having to move the Village High School operations and other departments, those plans are still at least three to four years down the road.

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