Mark Sanchez's Prop H Sellout

Uh oh! Looks like the new BOE majority, lead by Mark Sanchez, is trying to pull a fast one that will cost SFUSD and its students millions of dollars. At issue are $2.5M this next year, but if they get away with this now, the cost over the life of Prop H will multiply.

Last night the budget committee voted on a resolution titled "In Kind Services to the Public Education Enrichment Fund (Proposition H)" which will allow the city to take credit for in-kind services that it provides the district. At issue is whether the city should be required to provide "new" in-kind services to the district, or if they can count existing services as part of the city's Prop H obligations.

The followinG is a first-had account from Novella Smith, a veteran SFUSD parent and political consultant:

Tonight at the San Francisco School District Budget Committee meeting it became apparent that Mark Sanchez (Board President) made a back room deal with Supervisors Ross Mirkarimi, Aaron Peskin, and Sean Elsbernd to sell out school kids (again). They agreed among themselves that 2.5 million dollars of Prop. H money (you know the money that 72% of the voters decided should go to increase funding for school children) would be called in-kind donation of existing services! These three Supervisors did not support Prop. H so they are using legislative tricks to undo the will of the voters.

Mark Sanchez introduced the resolution at a late evening meeting of the School Board. The Prop H Citizens Committee was not consulted nor were they even aware of the resolution. They were not even told that it would come before the Budget Committee. This is another Schwarzenegger kind of sell-out of our children.

When parents went to the budget meeting, some 15 speakers implored the BOE members to make this NEW services in the resolution. Norman Yee made a motion that the resolution have the word "new services" and then proceeded, along with Jane Kim, to vote against the "Yes" motion making sure that services from the City did not have to be new services. Jane Kim blathered on about how important it is to work with the BOS. This is true. It is important, but not by selling out our kids for some Supervisors who do not have kids, or whom did not support Prop H! Jane, HELLO, kids ARE more important than politics!

Ultimately, since school board members could not agree to make the resolution say "new services", and since they did not really know what to do, they decided that another committee should take up this issue. Which one? The joint committee of the BOS and BOE! This committee meets during the day, so now everyone will have to take the day off from work and come back if they want to register a complaint about this Back Room Deal!

The most amazing thing about this is, that these guys are trying to horse trade Prop. H funds against funds from the Department of Children Youth and Family Services. DCYF Children's Fund money is extra money that the voters approved for children TWICE! Because kids were getting the stiffed.

What is it about kids, that our politicians are so comfortable taking money away from them is because they don't have a lobby! Call or write your supervisors and complain about this!!! http://www.sfgov.org/site/bdsupvrs_index.asp

Novella Smith
Prop H supporter and person who actually has, knows, and talks to kids of all ages!

Obviously the backers of this resolution feel they can get away with this without anyone noticing. How on earth could they face the voters who passed Prop H overwhelmingly and explain this weaselly, slimy attempt to defraud the district? They might think they are paying down some political debts that will further their future political ambitions. But they will have to explain their votes. As BOE commissioners it is hard to fathom how they can honestly explain why they let Prop H opponents rob the district of millions of dollars.

The deal is not done yet. There is still time to stop this gambit, or at least force the perpetrators to stand up to the public and defend their votes. This should be interesting.

UPDATE: I incorrectly indicated that this proposal applies to "next" year when in fact it has been discussed relative to FY 08-09. See this correction for more on this.