In the wake of mid-year budget cuts and long-term deficits in California, Hayward Unified School District (HUSD) administrators attribute the survival of the school system to their ability to manage incoming funds efficiently.

“With things like trigger and mid-year cuts, it puts you in a position where you create deficits,” said Stanley Dobbs, HUSD assistant superintendent of business services. “So the biggest tragedy to us when referring to mid-year cuts is that it creates deficits for us that we many not have been able to plan for earlier, but we anticipate them and we come up with a process to try and mitigate them.”

In December, Gov. Jerry Brown announced that public services in California would be hit by nearly $1 billion in spending cuts in following weeks. K-12 schools were hit the hardest, with overall cuts amounting to $327 million.

Losses in funding to K-12 education and other state public services have left several California residents wondering how the public school system can remain educating youth if spending cuts continue.

Dobbs says their ability as problem solvers is critical in the midst of statewide economic hardships and the approaches the school district takes to continue educating children must be different than they were a decade ago.

“Then there was a lot of certainties and now we’ve got a lot of uncertainties,” said Dobbs. “We’ve had to come up with alternatives and in some cases very creative alternatives for the school district.”

In 2008, the HUSD received a $28 million dollar stimulus from the federal government and allocated the funds appropriately, resulting in the district’s ability to continue educating Hayward youth.

“Our financial situation is probably much stronger than it’s been in over the last decade because of how we executed the use of the stimulus money when we received it. We actually used it for the purpose that the federal government intended it for,” explained Dobbs.

Luci Rogers, HUSD director of business support services, says the only thing that has aided school districts such as Hayward’s, is the assistance various districts have received from the federal government in the past.

“If they hadn’t jumped in and sent us that money we would certainly be under state take-over right now, because that was the only thing that kept us afloat and that’s gone now,” said Rogers.

The HUSD experienced a total loss of $809,135 of state funded money during Trigger II reductions. The majority of funds lost came from school transportation.

Despite the loss of a large amount of state funding to school transportation, Dobbs admits that mid-year cuts could have been far more devastating to the school system.

A loss of $7.3 million was initially estimated prior to Trigger II, and it was foreseen that the loss would be taken from the school system’s average daily attendance funds, which would directly affect students’ education.

Temporary trigger cuts were implemented in Gov. Brown’s 2011-2012 budget to be used if necessary. Brown stated openly on several occasions that the cuts were introduced to counter budget shortfall and ensure that California’s economic forecast shows some financial growth in the future.

After numerous cuts to funding, school administrators feel that they will only continue to experience a loss of funding from the state, as well as the growth of the budget deficit.

“One of the things [Gov. Brown] told us was that these trigger cuts would be a one-time thing, but that was a lie, because as soon as we got to January then he came out saying he has plans for another trigger in November now,” said Dobbs.

In addition to budget cuts, the state government owes money to the school district which they have yet to receive. These “deferrals” have continued to accumulate for years, while the district struggles to make up for the deficit that results from the money the government has thus far withheld.

Over $2 million promised in July 2012 will be withheld until January 2013, if and only if the government decides against detaining the funds longer.

The state government recently passed a law which states that the government has the right to extend the deferral for 90 days as long as a 30-day notice is provided, while there is currently nothing written in law that says they are required to pay the deferrals back.

As a result, Dobbs says the entire HUSD is currently living from paycheck to paycheck.

“Every month they are taking money that they’re not going to give to you,” said Dobbs. “So when do you get the opportunity to build up cash so you can make payroll and keep the schools running? Well it’s kind of hard to do when they’re not giving you any of your money, because the money is just flying away…it really hurts.”

To tackle the insufficient funding issue, the district has plans to focus on reducing operating expenditures, while increasing revenue.

Currently 87 percent of the budget is allocated to employee salaries, while 13 percent of the budget accounts for necessary operating expenditures.

Though reducing operating expenditures will cut into the smaller portion of the budget, Dobbs says the alternative would hinder students’ education.

“When you cut back employees and staff you then have to reduce the number of programs you can offer students,” said Dobbs. “Our first goal is to provide services for children. We try to stay as far away from the classroom as possible to protect the entity of the dividing structure.”

Though the district has plans to mitigate future budget reductions, Rogers says they are facing an ongoing problem that will only be solved if people begin to consider the bigger picture.

“The real problem is not just what they’re doing to us, but the problems they’re having in the state. We’re in trouble because they’re in trouble. [The state] is partly in trouble because the United States Government is in trouble. It all trickles down,” said Rogers.