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- Written by: Elizabeth Larson
LOWER LAKE, Calif. – Continued reductions in educational funding are forcing the Konocti Unified School District’s board to begin the process of deciding how to cut millions of dollars in order to balance its coming year’s budget, a task that will involve considering the possible elimination of dozens of jobs.
The initial discussion on fiscal year 2012-13 budget cuts by the Konocti Unified School District Board of Trustees will take place during its regular meeting, which begins at 6:15 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 1, in the Carol McClung Conference Center, 9430-B Lake St. in Lower Lake.
The item on “The KUSD Zero Based Model” will be discussed under budget and facilities items.
Marty Aarreberg, executive administrative assistant to district Superintendent Bill MacDougall, said no decision will be made at the Wednesday meeting, and that further discussion and a decision are expected at a special daylong budget session beginning at 8:30 a.m. Saturday, Feb. 11. Aarreberg said all community members are welcome – and encouraged – to attend.
MacDougall, who was in meetings throughout Monday afternoon, did not return a message seeking comment on the Wednesday meeting and the proposal to cut services and jobs.
However, MacDougall and district Business Manager Laurie Desimone submitted an in-depth memorandum to the board of trustees, outlining the challenges the district is facing.
In a memo explaining the zero based model, the memo begins by stating, “The financial challenge with which we are faced is not one of the district’s choosing, nor have we created this problem. The current financial distress has been created as a result of the state and national economic circumstances and governmental decisions and given to us to resolve for our district.”
MacDougall’s and Desimone’s memo said that the four main budget issues the district must face are the complete elimination of state transportation funding; a mid-year trigger cut of $370 per student for average daily attendance, which exceeds $1 million for Konocti Unified; the exhaustion of federal jobs funds, a loss of $571,000; and an estimated $400,000 in step and column advancement and other bargaining agreement-associated costs for staffers.
Those four items total almost $2.8 million, which MacDougall and Desimone reported is more than 10 percent of the district general fund budget.
“Along with these unprecedented cuts, the Governor proposes the greatest budget flexibility seen in decades,” the memorandum said. “These changes if adopted by the legislature would pool nearly all state categorical funds into a single revenue stream for districts to utilize in the manner decided by the local district, without the ‘strings’ of the past program guidelines.”
The memo said the board directed district staff to develop a zero based budget model, which starts at zero and builds upward by prioritizing essential programs and personnel.
The message from MacDougall and Desimone to the board acknowledges that the decisions before trustees will have far reaching impacts on programs and staff.
“We want to be sure that we can give earliest notice possible to staff who may be laid off or will have their hours reduced,” they wrote. “We anticipate that action by the board on lay off notices will be made no later than the March 7th regular board meeting.”
The zero based model’s proposed staffing cuts are deep, according to an early version of the report released as part of the agenda packet.
Up for possible elimination are the Carlé Continuation High School principal’s job; eight to 10 kindergarten through third grade teaching positions; all K-8 librarians and the K-8 music teacher; three six-hour licensed vocational nurses; director of technology and student services; one truancy investigator or partial position at the Lake County Office of Education; all site bilingual paraprofessionals and bilingual family liaisons; a 1.5-hour clerk position and one eight-hour mechanic in the transportation department; a half-time education specialist at Lower Lake Elementary; a two-hour California High School Exit Examination paraprofessional at Carlé High; and a half-time contracted alternative education teacher.
Further, the plan proposes to cut one eight-hour librarian, three six-hour student management assistants, one seven-hour student management assistant and one two-hour site secretary at Highlands Academy, adding back one seven-hour site secretary.
At the high school, possible cuts include one ROP teacher, one 11-month high school secretary, one-eight hour librarian, one eight-hour career center clerk/site testing coordinator, one eight-hour high school campus supervisor, four periods of an in school school suspension teacher, two sections for the athletic director, 12 hours for a bilingual paraprofessional, one five-hour bilingual family liaison, junior varsity coaching stipends and two sections of the academy director.
The food services director’s salary would be cut by one month, and bus drivers, paraprofessionals and some other support positions would see their work year cut by five to six days.
Also on the list of possible eliminations are drama and band for K-8; seven to eight bus routes would be cut, with reduced hours for five to six other routes; the teacher in charge for Lewis School would no longer receive a stipend; and class size reductions for K-3 and the Community-Based English Tutoring program would end.
Blue Heron School, for grades nine through 11, is proposed to be reduced to a single session and moved to Burns Valley.
MacDougall and Desimone concluded their memo by writing, “Together we can make the tough decisions necessary and do what we must under these difficult circumstances to provide the highest quality education possible for our students.”
Management staff are set to meet on Tuesday to finalize their recommendations for the board's Wednesday meeting.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
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- Written by: Elizabeth Larson
CLEARLAKE, Calif. – A Clearlake home sustained major damage in a Saturday afternoon fire.
The fire, reported over the radio shortly before 4 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 28, was located in a residence at 14415 Alvita Ave., according to Lake County Fire Protection District Capt. Brice Trask.
Initial reports from the scene said there was heavy smoke coming from the home’s eaves.
Trask said firefighters arrived at the scene of the single-story, single-family home, and were quickly able to contain the fire to the room of origin, which he said was the living room.
He estimated that it took only about 10 minutes to suppress the fire and mop up the scene.
The residence has been undergoing remodeling, and had the utilities turned on, he said.
He said the home appeared to have been illegally entered by an unknown person or persons.
“Activities inside the house resulted in a fire to the couch,” he said.
However, Trask said the exact cause wasn’t not known on Monday, with the incident still under investigation.
He estimated that the structure suffered $30,000 in damage from fire and smoke.
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- Written by: Lake County News reports
SONOMA COUNTY, Calif. – The Department of Fish and Game (DFG) recently released adult coho salmon in Salmon Creek, Sonoma County to reestablish a coho salmon population.
This is the fourth consecutive year adult salmon were released, the agency reported.
The Department of Fish and Game said 200 adults were released on two separate occasions in late December 2011 and early January 2012.
The released coho included 120 males and 80 females, predominantly hybrids derived from mating between coho salmon of Russian River and Olema Creek origin, with a small number of pure Russian River coho and Olema Creek coho, Fish and Game said.
“We are at a critical moment in the survival of the coho salmon on the California coast,” said Manfred Kittel, the Department of Fish and Game Coho Salmon Recovery coordinator. “DFG and our federal and environmental partners must take aggressive actions to save the species from becoming extinct in central California.”
As in previous years, this year’s fish were released near the mouth of Salmon Creek with the hope that the fish will migrate upstream to find suitable spawning habitat in one of Salmon Creek’s tributaries, according to the Monday report.
Despite the general lack of rain this season, biologists are optimistic that the recently released coho should be able to find spawning habitat in some upstream portions of Salmon Creek and its tributaries.
The release of adult coho in Salmon Creek is a joint effort between DFG, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and other entities, including private landowners. The Salmon Creek access site is located a few miles north of Bodega Bay on the Chanslor Ranch owned by George Gross.
“The entire coho recovery team appreciates Mr. Gross allowing us to access the creek on his property for the past four years,” said Kittel. “There are few optimal places where adult coho can be released and we appreciate the help we get from Chanslor Ranch.”
In 2008, 2009 and 2010 field biologists collected tissue samples and confirmed that the released coho spawned successfully in several tributaries and in all possible mating combinations.
Fish surveys planned for the coming summer in the Salmon Creek watershed will tell DFG biologists whether the latest released group of adult coho salmon has reproduced successfully and whether any of the progeny from the first release in winter 2008 have returned this season from the ocean to spawn in the watershed where their life’s journey began three years ago.
Releasing hatchery-reared adult coho salmon is a relatively new technique that has the advantages of not requiring spawning in a hatchery, allowing the released fish to establish natural mating patterns and subjecting their offspring to natural selective pressures from birth on.
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- Written by: Lake County News reports
SACRAMENTO – The Department of Water Resources (DWR) will conduct this winter’s second snow survey on Wednesday, Feb. 1.
One focus of attention will be the manual survey scheduled for 11 a.m. off Highway 50 near Echo Summit.
This and other manual surveys up and down the state as well as electronic readings from remote sensors will determine the water content in the snowpack.
Electronic readings on Monday indicated that water content in the statewide snowpack is just 38 percent of normal. That is 23 percent of the average April 1 reading, when the snowpack is normally at its peak before the spring melt.
While those numbers are low, DWR said they’re an improvement over results of this winter’s Jan. 3 survey, which recorded snowpack water content at 19 percent of normal for that date, and only 7 percent of the average April 1 reading.
”Conditions so far this winter continue to be much drier than we would like,” said DWR Director Mark Cowin. “We are fortunate that most of the state continues to benefit from good reservoir storage carried over from last winter, and we remain optimistic for a return to a normal weather pattern between now and spring to sustain adequate water deliveries.”
Lake Oroville in Butte County, the State Water Project’s principal storage reservoir, is at 107 percent of average for the date (72 percent of its 3.5 million acre-foot capacity), Lake Shasta north of Redding, the federal Central Valley Project’s largest reservoir with a capacity of 4.5 million acre-feet, is at 100 percent of its normal storage level for the date (68 percent of capacity).
San Luis Reservoir in Merced County, an important storage reservoir south of the Delta, is at 121 percent of average for the date (96 percent of its capacity of 2,027,840 acre-feet). San Luis is a critically important source of water for both the State Water Project and Central Valley Project when pumping from the Delta is restricted or interrupted.
For context, an acre-foot is 325,851 gallons, enough to cover one acre to a depth of one foot.
In addition to better-than-average storage, it is expected that storms later this winter will deepen the snowpack and increase runoff into the state’s streams, reservoirs and aquifers.
Conditions between now and early spring will determine the amount of State Water Project (SWP) water DWR will be able to deliver this calendar year.
The initial estimate is that DWR will be able to deliver 60 percent of the slightly more than 4 million acre-feet of water requested by the 29 public agencies that distribute SWP water to more than 25 million Californians and nearly a million acres of irrigated farmland.
The initial delivery estimate for calendar year 2011 was only 25 percent of requested SWP water.
As winter took hold, a near-record snowpack and heavy rains resulted in deliveries of 80 percent of requests in 2011. The final allocation was 50 percent in 2010, 40 percent in 2009, 35 percent in 2008, and 60 percent in 2007.
The last 100 percent allocation – difficult to achieve even in wet years because of pumping restrictions to protect Delta fish species – was in 2006.
DWR and cooperating agencies conduct manual snow surveys around the first of the month from January to May. The closely-monitored snowpack normally provides approximately one-third of the water for California’s households, industries and farms as it melts in spring and summer.
Electronic snowpack readings are available on the Internet at http://cdec.water.ca.gov/cgi-progs/snow/DLYSWEQ.
Electronic reservoir level readings may be found at http://cdec.water.ca.gov/cdecapp/resapp/getResGraphsMain.action.
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