Torrance City Council – A Town Hall Style Conversation About Local Politics

This past Monday the School Board approved a collective bargaining agreement with SEIU Local 99. SEIU represents approximately 250 of the District’s classified employees which comprise of the District’s custodial staff, grounds maintenance, cafeteria workers, and bus drivers. The agreement provides those workers with a 5% salary increase effective July 01, 2016 and a 4.98% increase in statutory benefits.

Compulsory financial disclosures included in the staff report also revealed that the the District suffered a $529,000 reduction in one-time funds expected to be received from the state. The District had recently announced it was the beneficiary of $14.7 Million in one-time funds.

TUSD solicited community feedback on the use of these one-time monies by sending out a survey to parents on the subject just prior to last November’s School Board election. A community meeting was also held earlier this year at North High School. The School Board ultimately approved uses for half of the funds at a meeting last June opting to hold $7.75 Million of the monies in reserve for future undetermined uses. No explanation was provided in the documentation or at the meeting for why the one time funds were reduced by the $529,000.

The agreement escalates the District’s soaring deficit spending. A month ago, the District approved a budget showing a $13,843,000 deficit for the current fiscal year. Due to the agreement with SEIU, that figure will rise to an astonishing $14,893,000. The increased deficit spending will take a toll on the District’s reserve. In the budget from last month, the reserve was forecasted to plummet to -$6,208,000 by fiscal year 2018-19. Per the agreement with SEIU, that figure sank even further to -$7,514,534.

SEIU Local 99 had generated some controversy in the past election by seeking that the School Board candidates sign a loyalty pledge and requesting that they respond to a lengthy questionnaire on a wide-range of hot button political issues.

Terry Ragins, who won a fourth term on the School Board in the past election, was endorsed by SEIU although it was never made clear whether she actually signed the loyalty pledge. SEIU and other organizations affiliated with classified employees ended up contributing nearly $8000 to her campaign. Teachers unions kicked in another $5000. Those two hefty amounts formed the bulk of the funds donated to her campaign as the total contributions she received according to required campaign finance disclosures amounted to only $14,558.17.  In addition to the union affiliated contributions, Ragins received just over $1500 in individual contributions mostly stemming from other School Board and City Council Members and District employees.

Don Lee, the other victorious candidate in the past election, was not formally endorsed by SEIU, but still received a $1000 contribution from a political action group associated with classified employees. Lee also received $6500 from teacher unions bringing the total donated to the two successful candidates by union affiliated organizations to over $20,000.

The District reached a labor agreement with the teachers union in June that included a 4% raise and a $2800 cash bonus to all bargaining unit members.

At its last meeting held earlier this week, the School Board approved PowerSchool as its new Student Information System (SIS) provider.  As portrayed in the above chart, PowerSchool was by far the most expensive of the six vendors that responded to the District’s solicitation for proposals. The staff report on the item offered no information as to why PowerSchool was recommended over the much more inexpensive options.

School Board Member Terry Ragins attributed the significant price difference to the value added of the alignment piece the PowerSchool system offered. Chief Technology Officer Gil Mara, who lists degrees in Biology and Education on LinkedIn, acknowledged he did not know much about the back end of the system. In that regard he stated, “I know the front end. I know people. My forte is gathering people and walking them through the steps.”

Mara also likened the choice to changing an old tire with a new and justified the recommendation by stating:

“We’re so beyond just changing tires here. We’re really looking for a whole new system, a whole new vehicle. To get there we really just need to do this deep dive. I’d be really nervous just saying alright we can just go with a cheap or mid-level solution…We’re kind of back where we started from because we have a new interface but our practices haven’t changed. We haven’t done what we really need to do to move ourselves forward.”

Board member Mark Steffen also noted the price difference by positing, “the other 4 or 5 options did not really have as robust alignment and best practice kind of system, right?” In response, Mara said it was hard to compare systems but added:

“It’s about doing it right.  We either do this or we do nothing.  We stick with what we have.  I don’t want to go halfway on it.”

In recommending PowerSchool, Mara also cited benefits such as an easy to use gradebooks for teachers that could be accessed on multiple devices and online registration capability for parents which would do away with paper enrollment packets.

According to the staff report, PowerSchool is an advanced student information system (SIS) designed to meet the needs of the district for several years to come.  Reporting attendance, scheduling classes, recording demographics, grading and generating report cards and transcripts are standard functions of any SIS. PowerSchool enhances many of these functions with a completely web-based system with an Application Programming Interface (API) that allows third-party vendors to integrate.  In addition, a powerful online registration portal will eliminate the need for paper registration packets, with an intuitive parent portal. Replacing our current system Q (formerly named Zangle), with PowerSchool, will give extensive tools to the faculty and staff to meet the growing demands for data reporting and communication.

The Board approved PowerSchool by unanimous vote. It is expected that the new SIS will be fully implemented by the beginning of the 2017-18 School Year.

In a rare public display of discord Councilman Griffiths took issue with Mayor Furey’s appointments to regional boards or agencies at last Tuesday’s meeting. Griffith’s was a notable absentee from the appointment list as all of the other councilmembers, including newly elected Milton Herring, received a nod from the mayor as either a delegate or an alternate on one of the various boards.

Of the apparent snub Griffiths boldly stated:

As can be seen on this item my name is not present.  With all due respect to the mayor’s decision I wanted to share why I will be voting no on this item.  I’ve asked the mayor on multiple occasions over the past two years to appoint me to an outside board or agency and I have received none.  In my opinion, these are important appointments and these appointments should not be politicized.  As you yourself have said mayor, we are a team here and I feel like I am sitting on the sidelines.

Mayor Furey did not directly respond to Griffith’s comments, but did dismissively state that “there are only so many appointments.”  The Council approved the mayor’s appointments by a vote of 6 to 1 with Councilman Griffiths casting the lone dissenting vote. The appointments were as follows: