In the Sacramento Bee Today

Stockpile could save Natomas district from making job cuts
By Robert Faturechirfaturechi@sacbee.com
Published: Friday, Feb. 20, 2009 - 12:00 am Page 6B

Next month, school officials across the state will notify teachers and librarians that they might be laid off. But at Sacramento's Natomas Unified School District, employees are breathing easy because the district is not expected to send out the warnings, despite one of the worst economic downturns in recent memory. District administrators have stockpiled reserve funds to insulate staff and programs from cuts in state funding. State law requires layoff notices for certified employees – mostly teachers and librarians – who might be let go by the end of the school year.
With deep midyear cuts expected from the state, more of these notes will go out this spring, and from more districts, which makes Natomas' situation even more unusual. For years the district has enjoyed growing enrollment – a major source of funding. It has built a hefty rainy day reserve of more than $10 million, about four times greater than the 3 percent reserve most districts strive for. "This is certainly a rainy day," said board President Teri Burns. "But we are counting on those reserves."
The district expects to use $5.4 million of those funds this school year, allowing it to avoid layoffs. That's a sharp contrast to neighboring districts where dozens, and in some cases hundreds, of employees will receive layoff notifications. By March 15, notices are expected to go to 600 to 700 employees of the Elk Grove Unified district, 100 to 200 at Folsom Cordova Unified, more than 100 at Rocklin Unified, and up to 3,000 at San Juan Unified.
Though districts don't usually lay off all, or even most, employees they notify, the notices can give an idea of the upper limits for layoffs. Natomas Unified's skipping the notices cannot be attributed solely to good planning. Enrollment at the district has grown in recent years as the district rode a wave of development in the area. Propped up by years of prosperity, and motivated by a budget scare caused by overstaffing in 2001, district administrators have been able to slowly build their reserves better than most other districts. "At that time we had vowed we'd start to rebuild reserves and have been steadily doing that since," said John Christ, assistant superintendent of business services. "Everyone's spending a little less than their budget."
Without the reserves, Burns said, some athletic programs and reduced class sizes would likely have been on the chopping block this year. "At the end of the year, if we have extra money, we put it in the reserve rather than just spend it," Burns said. "Unlike the state of California."