South Bay District Avoids Cuts With a ‘Business’ Approach

Leave it to the South Bay Union Elementary School District to buck the tide of financial woes hitting other districts.

While every other public educational system throughout San Diego County bemoans harsh but necessary cutbacks--some already made, some upcoming--in academic programs and people, the iconoclastic South Bay administration believes it will be required to make few or none at this point.

And even if it does have to trim some programs later in the year, they will be in areas that other school districts would consider “frills” or “add-ons” to the basic classroom mission.

In Supt. Philip Grignon’s view, the lack of budget trauma results from applying to business operations the same single-mindedness he has applied to academic achievement, making the low-income district a consistent “surprise” participant at the rarefied level of California’s top districts for test score performance.

“You budget conservatively, you get the biggest clout for the buck and you run like a business does,” Grignon said. He said some complain when he says he runs the district like a business, “but with a $40 million budget, it is a big business.”

Among the things that Grignon credits for the district’s ability to weather bad financial times:

* Instead of hiring experienced teachers, the district hires new teachers and administrators and trains them itself in South Bay’s philosophy of regular student and teacher review and evaluation. That holds per-person personnel costs down while allowing the district to pay its teachers near the top of the overall county salary scale, he said. South Bay’s health plan pays for all employee medical premiums under one health maintenance organization, but employees pay the difference if they prefer to join any higher-priced alternative. That resulted in a 17% increase for South Bay last year, contrasted with 100%-plus increases faced by many other districts.

* The district has few administrators, no resource teachers outside of the classroom and no large staffs of nurses and psychologists, instead relying on existing county social services departments to provide those services when necessary, he said. “You don’t create a permanent organizations of people, but instead take teachers when necessary and set up special teams like we did for our new reading program,” Grignon said.

* The district has joint arrangements with the city of Imperial Beach and other public agencies to buy supplies in bulk as a way to hold down costs. It also acts quickly to stem unanticipated price hikes, such as recently implementing a plan to cut the district’s water consumption by 25% in order to avoid higher prices.

* Conservative budgeting, such as using a $115-per-student figure this year for lottery receipts--based on district experience with the yo-yo pattern of lottery purchases--instead of the $170 recommended by the state. Actual receipts came in at $123, so the district was not forced to cut back on programs already planned.

The district has always used its lottery money for one-time-only programs, such as buying a complete computer network for every South Bay classroom, rather than putting it into continuing efforts that must be funded even if lottery funds run short, Grignon said.

“At this point, I expect to be able to continue every service next year” including the district’s extensive before- and after-school child care and enrichment programs, Jim Stark, deputy superintendent for general services, said. “What I am not going to be able to do is some additional things such as building improvements, some conferences we had planned, things like that will be put on hold.”

Grignon worried, however, that some things may have to be put aside under a worst-case scenario, including bonus money to schools that improve the most in reading and an administrative training program for teachers.

“And, while those may be seen as frills elsewhere, it would hurt because we like to be seen as a ‘lighthouse’ district, out in front of others,” he said.