A Hard Lesson on School Funding

Newport-Mesa school officials are quickly learning how to avoid biting the hand that feeds them after a $1.1-million donation fell short of funding staff positions the district had counted on having.

It’s a problem every school district should have.

For years now, a secret donor has given more than $1 million a year to the Newport-Mesa Unified School District for selected programs to enrich the educational experiences of the district’s 20,000 students.

In years past, the donor has specified that a portion of the money be used to boost Ensign Intermediate School’s English as a second language program by funding two instructors, a community coordinator and two portable classrooms.

But this year, the donor instructed that none of the $1.1 million go to the ESL program, leaving a $60,000 gap at the school.

The donor’s desires initially went unnoticed by district officials, and the extra personnel remained. Their salaries will be covered through the end of the school year from the district’s reserve fund--money typically used for emergencies.

Ensign Principal Allan Mucerino said he anticipated receiving the donor’s gift as usual and somehow, the change was not communicated to him.

“I just assumed [the money] would be there again. It’s just as simple as that,” Mucerino said.

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It’s unclear why the donor’s intentions changed. Mucerino said the donor originally offered the gift because of a boundary shift that sent some non-English-speaking students to the school.

The principal suspects the donor thought the school’s ESL program had achieved its goals and wanted to move funding elsewhere.

Mucerino also said another factor might have been the recent passage of a state ballot measure that stresses the use of English in classrooms.

District officials emphasized that neither the school nor the district have skimped on student services or programs to make up the shortfall.

“I’m not looking to place blame,” said Mike Fine, district assistant superintendent of business services. “If we had been told, we certainly would have adjusted staffing.”

Donors to the district have control over how their money is spent, but in this case, the discrepancy between the donor’s wishes and what the school was anticipating has created an atmosphere ripe for rethinking the process.

“We’re working on changing policy,” school board President Serene R. Stokes said. “If this was just for materials, then it would be OK. But when it’s for personnel, it becomes a problem.”

School officials are looking at requiring itemized lists detailing which programs are being funded.

Currently, a list of needs is provided to the anonymous donor, according to Jeff Wilcox, president of the Newport-Mesa Schools Foundation, the organization through which the donation is made.

The donor then chooses which programs to fund. The school board, according to Stokes, then approves the allocation but does not receive an itemized list.

Now, Stokes said, “we really need to have more detail and have more controls . . . in order to prevent this from happening again.”

According to Fine, the school’s ESL program would never be jeopardized based on this or other private donations, as the core of the program is funded by federal and state dollars.

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District officials couldn’t pinpoint what the donor chose to fund instead but said it was consistent with the donor’s wishes to provide exposure for the children beyond the classroom.

The donor generally has elected to fund such programs as nature studies, tutoring, science projects and field trips.

“The donor has something in mind,” Fine said, “and sometimes that focus changes and one thing goes away while another comes into view.”

Fine said he was uncertain about funding for next year, but Ensign’s ESL program will remain.

Since Proposition 13’s passage in 1978, shifting control over property taxes from local to state government, Orange County schools have increasingly looked to private funding for programs that would no longer exist otherwise.

Arts, music, physical education and field trips are programs frequently funded by private donors.