Andreani Approach for School Financial Crisis

By Martha Andreani

Our schools face a financial crisis because of state underfunding, and to some extent, school board mismanagement. By law, the city cannot give schools money, if it had any to spare, which being heavily in debt and spending more than receiving, it does not. Martha Andreani identifies three areas in which the city can help the schools, and gives an example for each.

Goal CR-3 in the new general plan, under cultural resources, states, "Maintain relationships with educational institutions, as they represent a cornerstone of the community's foundation." How can the city council foster this relationship?

By state law, the city cannot give money directly to the school district. Similar to other cities, such as Santa Monica and Beverly Hills, Manhattan Beach does provide indirect support to schools for shared use of facilities by students and the public, for example $660,000 yearly on sports-field maintenance, and other means, such as a part-time assignment of a police officer for educational purposes. Consequently, Andreani views finding ways for the city to assist in the education financial crisis as a search for additional synergies, cooperative efforts that will focus municipal resources to benefit both city and schools. As a councilmember, Andreani also looks to apply resources of the private sector to school financial difficulties, in an association of the city council with organizations such as the MB Education Foundation.

Although means do exist for injecting money into the school system, the city has none to spare, by virtue of having depleted reserves and taking on debt these past years, spending more than it receives from taxes, fees and investment income. For example, if the city had cash, then it could start paying a fair rental cost for Polliwog Park, owned by the school district, but leased at a dollar a year.

The city does not have cash, however, so opportunities remain strictly restricted. We must do more with what limited resources we have. Along those lines, Andreani will recommend that the city council reinstitute the monthly meetings between the council subcommittee on education with its counterpart in the school board. Continuous and regular coordination between the two elected entities has fallen by the wayside and must be renewed. Andreani will request from her fellow councilmembers an assignment to the subcommittee.

Three examples illustrate Andreanifs approach for city-school synergies:
-Andreani's Personal Undertaking: Privately-Sponsored High School Senior Achievement Awards
-Fund Line-Item for City-School Synergies
-Ladera Low-Density, Open-Space Option (provided in separate paper No 1 on Andreani's SmartVoter page)

Andreani's Personal Undertaking: Privately-Sponsored High-School Senior Achievement Awards

As my personal undertaking to support our schools, under the auspices of the city council, I will establish a privately-sponsored cash scholarship program that will motivate Manhattan Beach high school seniors to unleash their creativity and energy. The achievement scholarships will comprise awards for senior-year thesis projects in arts and sciences for a variety of categories, specific disciplines in areas such as literature, life sciences, and art.

I envision an award schedule of $1000, $600, and $400 to first, second and third place finishers for each privately-sponsored category. Judging by a three-member panel drawn from outside the community, such as El Camino College, will ensure fairness. Each panel member will receive a stipend, which with the three awards and associated costs, adds to a total sponsorship cost of perhaps $5000 for a category. I already have two $5000 pledges, one for contemporary poetry and the other for literature. For 2005-2006, the first year, I have a goal to establish sponsorships for ten categories, a privately-funded $50,000 program that will encourage our high school seniors to harness their youthful enthusiasm and abilities to create something original.

The Senior Award Scholarships will constitute a cooperative community effort, presumably in association with the school district, the MB Education Foundation and other organizations.

For me, consistent with my pledge to improve communication by the city council to the community, the scholarship program will provide a means to establish personal relationships with businesses and other sponsors, who will benefit from the good publicity they receive in supporting our schools. Also, the program will give me the opportunity for increased outreach to neighboring entities, such a El Camino College, where our high school seniors attend advanced-placement classes.

As noted in the introduction to this web page on city-school synergies, we have severely restricted and limited ways for the city to provide financial aid. If we can direct the formidable assets of the private sector more on schools, then that will focus community attention on the financial crisis in education, as well as injecting some cash.

Funding Line Item for City-School Synergies

As previously stated, by state law, the city cannot give money directly to the school district. To maintain focus on increasing city-school synergies and to measure progress, Andreani proposes to establish a funding line item to aggregate appropriate revenues, such as fees charged for use of sports fields. Recently, the city increased fees for certain organizations using the fields. Unfortunately, these difficult times warrant the increases, but by placing the receipts in the city-school line item, at least parents will know that 100% of the money will go directly to field maintenance.

By establishing the funding line-item, the city and residents can track progress being made for synergistic support of schools. For example, Beverly Hills has such a line item, labeled Education, currently at $6.6 million, far more than Manhattan needs. Just the same, if Manhattan Beach aggregated school-related receipts in a dedicated line item, then at least the city and residents could easily determine the level of support, currently not possible without a time-consuming process of tracking down where the city does and does not interact with the school district.

Andreani wants to identify candidates for additional revenues to add to the city-school line item. For example, during the campaign, residents have expressed frustration over the level of vehicle code enforcement. Andreani would encourage the police department to step up their citations for moving violations, with some of the increase going to the city-school fund, to pay for more alcohol and drug education at schools by the police department. If officers knew that fines from citations went directly to law enforcement efforts for educating students, that would motivate them even further on vehicle code enforcement. Perhaps not necessary however, because the 2004-2005 budget already projects a 21%, $53,000 increase in traffic fines from 2003-2004.

See separate Paper No. 1 on Andreani's SmartVoter page for a Ladera Site Option