By Wayne Lusvardi
"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie." -- Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Information Minister
Sean Baggett, a runoff candidate for the Pasadena Unified School District School Board against incumbent Tom Selinske, is accused of lying about whether there was a warrant out for his arrest for failure to pay a fine for a former DUI incident that was plea-bargained down to a reckless driving offense. Baggett says once he read about this in the newspaper he ran down and paid the fine. It is unclear if the fine was connected with his prior reckless driving offense in 2008 or for a more recent traffic or parking ticket.
http://altadena.patch.com/articles/meet-your-pusd-board-candidates-sean-baggett
But that is not where Sean Baggett lied. Nor is it directly relevant to the issues in running for PUSD School Board. Where Baggett lied is in his statement at PasadenaPatch.com:
“Last year, close to 160 teachers were laid off”
No core teachers were laid off at PUSD, contrary to the statement by Sean Baggett.
In 2009 PUSD had 1,046 teachers. Here’s the online link. Look for yourself.
This year (2010) the PUSD budget indicates that there are 1,047 teachers, or one more teacher than last year despite PUSD’s claim of $20 million less in General Fund revenues. Again, check it out yourself here:
http://pusdbudget.org/images/uploads/2010-2011_all_funds_budget_2010-06-30.pdf
If Sean Baggett is going to run for School Board he better sharpen his pencil and quit believing all the PUSD press releases and unchecked newspaper stories by reporters who falsely believe they are advocating for funds needed for school children in their biased stories.
Where PUSD Lied
Here’s another fact that Mr. Baggett should bone up on if he is going to debate incumbent Tom Selinske before the runoff election set for April 19.
From what I have been able to determine, it is true that PUSD has had about $20 million in revenue reductions as they claim. But what Board President Tom Selinske and PUSD do not tell you is that PUSD has had approximately $14,689,000 in former categorical funding mandates deregulated by the State Legislature.
Under State Assembly Bill AB-4-X-2 (2009), the legislature made “categorical” funding from the state more flexible, resulting in $4.529 billion in cost savings to K-12 schools across the state. This was accomplished by eliminating “categorical” funding for politically protected job categories unrelated to core teaching (e.g., bus drivers, etc.). You can read about how ending "earmarks" saved California's K-12 school system here:
http://www.calwatchdog.com/2010/09/19/ending-earmarks-saved-ca-schools/
Extrapolated to PUSD, this amounts to $14,689,186 in potential cost savings in 2010-11.
Under AB-4-X-2, PUSD received a reduction in mandated costs equivalent to $731 per student. But this isn’t money that would have been spent on students or core teachers but on make work jobs programs.
In other words, PUSD taxpayers avoided a tax increase of $249 per household in 2010 by the State Legislature making mandated job categories more discretionary.
Another Lie
The State Legislative Analyst’s Office states that if the State Legislature further deregulated categorical school funding jobs and increased class sizes modestly, that an additional $7.437 billion in cost savings could be realized statewide. That would be equivalent to $22,492,328 in cost reductions to PUSD.
Again, this would mean about $1,201 less funding per student but this money would not be spent on teachers or students anyway.
This would avoid having to raise taxes on homeowners by about $381 per taxpaying household per year in PUSD.
Faced with less state revenue for public schools, the State Legislature has had no choice but to either raise taxes or reduce the burden of its “corruption tax” that it has loaded on school districts for politically protected job categories unrelated to core teaching.
PUSD’s BIG LIE
Where PUSD has told a half lie, or a half truth however you want to look at it, is that it has suffered a $20 million reduction in state revenue; but state mandated categorical costs (jobs programs) have been potentially reduced by $37,181,000, resulting in a total tax avoidance of $530 per year per taxpaying household within PUSD.
PUSD has only been telling the newspapers about the revenue side of its budget and not the reductions in mandated costs on the expenditure side of the budget. This lack of full disclosure is a lie. And it is a MUCH, MUCH BIGGER LIE than Sean Baggett’s alleged lie about his failure to pay a parking ticket or disclose a plea-bargained DUI; or his being duped by PUSD into believing that PUSD laid off 160 teachers.
PUSD also received about $20 million in 2010 in one-time Federal Stimulus money, some of which is carried over in the 2010-11 budget. Prior to the Measure CC Parcel Tax election PUSD official Ed Honowitz claimed in a community meeting that Stimulus money was spent only on the special education side of PUSD's operations. But now PUSD claims that it spent the Stimulus monies on subsidizing teachers salaries in regular K-12 classes. They think that we are all dupes and will forget what they said. More lies. But these lies are good enough to dupe all those true believing newspaper reporters out there who want to be champions for public schools instead of sticking to their job of finding truth.
Pasadenan Bev Ashley has the following quotation on her emails: “In a closed society where everybody's guilty, the only crime is getting caught. In a world of thieves the only final sin is stupidity." -- H.S. Thompson. And PUSD and Tom Selinske have been caught in a BIG STUPID LIE about the true financial picture of PUSD.
Comments