The following report comes from sfschools list member Boots Whitmer. Her report was originally posted to the list and is republished here with her permission.
I attended the super-secret Prop H Committee meeting held at 555 Franklin Street last night. I will not reveal the source who surreptitiously fed me the information that the meeting was taking place last night, lest something adverse happen to this source.
At least I can report that a quorum was present. Also present were Superintendent Ackerman, two of her staff, Tom Ruiz (labor negotiator for the SFUSD) Dennis Kelly and later, Linda Plack. No other members of the public were present, which is probably due to the super-secret nature of this Prop H Committee meeting. After all, a special request had previously been made to Nancy Waymack about public notice. Gee, I guess she just forgot.
Several of those in attendance had just come from a Board of Supervisors Budget Committee meeting (hereinafter BOSBCM) where the $1,100,000 advance on the Prop H 2006-2007 funds was discussed. The Board of Education (hereinafter BOE) had approved this use of Prop H funds, brokered by the Mayor and Tom Ammiano, who had been mindful of the severe budget shortfalls in the WSF at the end of the last school year. You may recall in the last exciting episode of the Prop H Committee, it was unable to take a stand on this issue because of a lack of quorum. Therefore, the issue went to the BOE with no Prop H. Committee recommendation. At both the Prop H Committee meeting as well as at the BOE, the union had demanded that the Prop H funds be used for union raises. The BOE approved the use of $1.1 million of advanced Prop H funds for use in this school year by the Site Councils to staunch a shortfall from June, on the grounds that it was an emergency and might be made up later in increased revenues from the state. The measure was then sent to the Board of Supervisors, who sent it to the BOSBCM for its procedural OK. That procedural OK was supposed to have happened yesterday.
But it didn't.
The BOSBCM was lobbied by the union. Because of this lobbying, the previously approved $1,100,000 advance which Ammiano himself had agreed to, was frozen. A remaining advance of $2,200,000 Prop H funds was also before the BOSBCM. The BOSBCM decided to take both the question of the $1.1 and $2.2 and hand the hot potato off to the Prop H Committee, with Ammiano stating that he was eager for their recommendation as to whether those funds should go to the unions for raises.
The Prop H Committee was stunned when it learned what its new charge was. The members of the committee came to the meeting expecting to set the schedule for the year and other more mundane items. A huge amount of time was expended explaining to the dumbfounded committee just what was expected of them. What they were being asked to do, essentially, was hand over at least the $2.2 million Prop H funds to the union for raises!
Tom Ruiz spoke to the Committee to give them further background. He said that, as to union 790 and the district, the gulf was wide. Hijacking the Prop H funds would result in a one-time .6% to .7% raise. The union wants 7% to 9% and they are already the highest paid workers in the state in comparable districts, except for Hayward which is currently under state crisis management because of fiscal malfeasance.
Of course, had the BOE NOT set up this committee, there would be no committee to lobby, no committee to politicize and no money to divert from its original intended purposes. But I digress.
There was lengthy discussion on the Prop H Committee as it tried to understand just what was going on. One member asked if it wasn't a conflict of interest for any member who stood to benefit from such a hijacking to vote on the issue. [Yes, I would say it WAS quite a conflict.] But Bruce Wolfe, who seems to be the master at arms of the bunch declared that it was NO conflict at all for the 4-5 members who would benefit to vote on such an issue on the spurious grounds that "our opinion is only advisory". One member indicated that whatever Tom Ammiano wanted, the committee should give him. One member looked positively upset over the fear that "someone" would be mad no matter what way she voted. One member ruefully ticked off all the things students will be losing by this hijacking.
After the Prop H Committee was able to get its collective head around the outrageousness of what was asked of it, it opened itself up to public comment. Dennis Kelly and I were the only public commentators there. I started and said that the Committee needed to get a legal opinion about whether the Prop H funds could be hijacked in this way. I also told them that the SFUSD's reputation for using funds properly was not good and that if the Prop H funds were hijacked, that the voters could not be expected to trust the district on further revenue issues. I repeated my insistence that the Prop H money should have been sent directly to the SSCs and I tried to explain why, along with complaining about the disenfranchisement of all high schoolers in the city.
Then Dennis Kelly got up and made a most revealing comment which put the entire picture into focus. He said, "It is legal (to divert Prop H funds to the unions) because Tom [Ammiano] said so. He said that he wrote the Proposition and he knows it is legal." And then Kelly demanded the Prop H funds for raises.
I shoulda known. I shoulda known that the whole Prop H thing was a sham. We all thought it was to increase and improve Art, Music, Athletics and Library. We thought it was a generous gesture by the Board of Supervisors (BOS) to help the schools' arts/music/library/athletics. A reading of the Proposition shows that 1/3 of the money is for pre-school education, 1/3 is for art/music/library/athletics (to supplement, not supplant, but that is yet another argument for another day) and 1/3 is more vaguely worded but was intended for "support services" including "salaries". It is this latter 1/3 which the unions have hit on as providing a raise for their members. And apparently Ammiano thinks that's just fine. It's "legal" because he wrote it. He is under the unfortunate assumption that because a legislator writes a piece of legislation that it is "legal". He's wrong, of course. Only a court can really make that determination, as numerous legislators have learned to their regret. Again, I digress.
But what did the voters and the hardworking moms and dads, PTAs and others, think that the Prop H funds were for? My impression was always that 1/3 was for pre-school and the rest (2/3) for arts/music/library/athletics. That half of that "rest" was vaguely worded meant to me that the language was meant to be flexible so that each school could use it for support services IN SUPPORT OF THE ARTS/MUSIC/LIBRARY and ATHLETICS, NOT for expenditures UNRELATED to those specific areas.
But that will all be history, now that the union has claimed the Prop H money.
Perhaps Sara Lipson knew this when she proposed a Committee. She wanted a body which could be molded to suit the needs of unions. Her resolution creating a committee wasn't aimed at suiting the needs of kids. If the needs of the kids had been paramount, the funds would have been directed straight to the SSCs.
Now, who among you really wants to volunteer to get out the vote on the NEXT school bond proposition? Hmmmm?
Respectfully submitted,
Boots Whitmer
