Pomona district board votes to send layoff notices to six capital facilities staff members

Published Friday, Jan. 14, 2011

POMONA - Layoff notices were mailed out Thursday to six Pomona Unified School District employees who make up the district's capital facilities staff.

District school board members voted 3-1 Wednesday evening to issue the notices. Board member Roberta Perlman voted in opposition while member Richard Rodriguez abstained.

Superintendent Richard Martinez said the layoffs represent what will be an on-going savings of $700,000 a year for the district which will have to cut $27 million to have a balanced budget for the 2011-2012 school year.

Although Gov. Jerry Brown is proposing a state budget that spared kindergarten to 12th grade education from cuts, part of his strategy calls for asking voters for extending the life of certain taxes to provide for schools, Martinez said.

The district must be prepared in case voters don't support the tax extensions, he said.

The layoffs are the start of what will be additional rounds of reductions, Martinez told board members.

Early next month a proposal will be presented to school board members calling for layoffs of some of the classified personnel working in the district's child development programs, he said.

Later in the month a proposal to issue preliminary layoff notices for some certificated employees which includes teachers, counselors and school psychologists will be presented to board members.

"This is the difficult reality of our situation," he said during the meeting.

The six affected employees are part of the district's administrative ranks and include Scott Stark, director of capital facilities.

The department, among other things is responsible for administering and carrying out school renovation plans being paid with a $235 million bond measure - Measure PS - that district voters approved in November 2008.

Stark told board members using consultants to carry out the work he and his staff handled would be costly.

Their work involved "guiding and scrutinizing consultants" in order to control costs and have a successful construction program, Stark said.

He suggested that the district move the employees salaries out of the general fund and use bond funds to pay for their wages.

"Our bond staff could and should be transferred to bond funding," he said.

Board member Andrew Wong said district residents were told money raised through the bond measure would be used to complete those projects and not be used to pay staff.

During the last two summers, capital facilities staff have supervised the completion of relatively smaller projects at more than 20 campuses around the district, he said.

However, larger projects are coming up.

"The most complex work we're doing is right around the corner," Stark said.

Phil Ripa, a member of the district's Measure PS oversight committee, said spending the money on staff would go toward ensuring projects are completed correctly and cost effectively.

Stark has been responsible for questioning contractors and consultants, Ripa said.

"He's looked at these things. He has scrutinized," he said.

Martinez said the district has administrators who are capable of working with the district's construction consultants and supervising the projects.

One of the administrators, Purchasing Director Nathaniel Holt, already has some responsibilities involving bond measure projects and has worked with the district's construction consultant, Martinez said after the meeting.

Holt has also had involvement in a previous district bond measure, Martinez said.

Perlman had requested board members hold off on a decision until next month so that she could have greater information.

"I'm not confident I understand all the fiscal ramifications" involved, she said.

That proposal was voted down, 3-2, with Rodriguez joining Perlman in opposition.

Wong said he had spoken with Stark about the matter.

"This is one of those very difficult decisions," Wong said. "We're in a very difficult time."

The district is using the services of a consultant so continued employment of district staff is "resulting in a redundancy," Wong said.

Board President Adrienne Konigar-Macklin said if the board acted Wednesday evening it could undo the action if it chose to do so at a later date.

After the meeting Steve Horowitz, assistant superintendent of personnel services, said notices were to be distributed Thursday and affected employees would work for the district until the end of February.

It's possible some of the six employees may be able to take other positions in the districts, he said