OUSD, Wtf
Andra Belknap | First Published March 1, 2023 to OLOThis is the first in a four-part series about the Ojai Unified School District's ongoing financial crisis.
Late last year, the Ventura County Office of Education (VCOE) informed the Ojai Unified School District (OUSD) that their budget numbers were off, by about a million dollars. According to the county, the district ended the 2021-2022 school year $30,000 in the red.
Whoops.
Just after VCOE's declaration arrived — three new members were elected to OUSD's Board of Trustees — (aka, the school board). (Congratulations?) This trio did not unseat a single incumbent — three multi-term trustees decided against running for re-election in 2022. (We can see why!) A triplet of newly elected trustees: Jim Halverson, Phil Moncharsch, and Atticus Reyes were sworn into office in early December, making the five-member Board majority freshmen. Trustees Shelly Griffen (elected in 2016) and Rebecca Chandler (elected in 2020) are the sole incumbents, and the only women.
These are the folks who will — over the course of the next two weeks — identify approximately $3 million in cuts to OUSD's budget. A county gun is to their heads, the threat of state intervention and loss of local governance the bullet. With violent consequences on the horizon, this board is taking painful action — something previous boards have resisted (to a degree, at the public's insistence).
Oh, and here's the real kicker: though the board has been advised to find approximately $3 million in cuts before March 15 (at which point they are legally obligated to provide staff notice of potential layoffs), they don't actually know the size of the hole in their budget. That is perhaps the most egregious detail in this drama.
Mike Fine, the chief executive officer of the state's Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team (FCMAT), made a personal appearance before the board on February 21 to lay out the gravity of the situation. OUSD has failed to finish its 2021-2022 audit; he said, "This one troubles me to no end because everyone else manages to do it, except your district. Stop blowin' off your auditor!"
Without a complete audit, Fine said the district is "working blind." He concluded his remarks by reading his personal cell phone number into the record, an open offer of support to the board, and a startling signal of the severity of OUSD's situation.
Now, the immediate question on everyone's mind is: who's to blame? The answer, for many, is Dr. Tiffany Morse, OUSD's Superintendent since 2019. (I'll note that FCMAT's Fine appeared to lay blame at her feet, though he did not name her personally. "This district, it's taken you approximately a year to recognize you have a problem," he said. "That is simply unacceptable. And the people that extended your troubles for a year should not be part of this district.”)
SUPERINTENDENT DR. TIFFANY MORSE, FROM OUSD.ORG
The board has heard consistent public demand for Morse's termination. Trustee Moncharsh shared his rationale for keeping Morse in place, at least for the time being: "For those of you demanding resignation, I fully intend to review her performance… My view is that now, when I've been a board member for 40 days, is not the time for that particular discussion." Today, Morse is all but sidelined at board meetings.
DR. REBECCA CHANDLER, BOARD PRESIDENT - TRUSTEE AREA 2, FROM OUSD.ORG
Another figure in this blame game is Chandler. During a critical board meeting in early February, Chandler received a letter from the Ventura County Clerk and Recorder, informing her of an effort to recall her. This recall was no secret — the effort was announced loudly by audience members during a prior meeting. The cost, however, was a shock (to me, at least). The recall effort will come at a cost of $80,000 to the district, according to the Clerk. Chandler's detractors cite her personal relationship with Morse (they worked together in the past and, by appearances, are personal friends) and her purported failure to exercise proper oversight as reason for the recall. Chandler, notably, is the only educator on the board.
When Chandler tearfully addressed the audience about the recall effort, she was audibly belittled. Griffen, clearly sympathetic to Chandler, plead for civility. The tenor of the discourse has been "difficult to swallow," she said timidly. "Then resign!" a woman shouted from the audience. Another woman seated in front of me was sending barf emojis (🤮🤮🤮) to what I assume was another audience member. The public's anger is justifiable, and still, the way it has manifested is unnerving.
The next question is, how could a wealthy community like Ojai find itself in such dire financial straits? The simple answer (in my mind) is that while wealth is definitely hoarded in the Ojai Valley, it does not trickle down to the school district. Here's some context: 40% of the children in OUSD qualify for free and reduced-price school meals. (A family of four earning $34,450 annually qualifies for free meals. A family of four earning $49,025 annually qualifies for reduced-price meals.) The median annual income in the City of Ojai hovers around $70,000. A night at the Ojai Valley Inn, conversely, runs $700 for a single night. The average Ojai home value is north of a million dollars. This wealth imbalance, in my view, is key to this issue (and ties into the problem of declining enrollment — more on that later.)
AN AVERAGE OJAI HOME, ACCORDING TO ZILLOW
The overarching question, of course, is: how did we get here? How could we possibly be rushing to cut three million dollars from our public school district's budget in two weeks, with the knowledge that we don't actually know the size of our financial shortfall?
So, over the next few weeks, I'll put some of the skills I developed as an OUSD student — and later as an Ojai Valley News reporter — to work in an attempt to answer that question. I will also be providing my own opinion (because I can't help it). If you find my analytical skills lacking in any way, please blame OUSD. (This is a joke, kind of.)
EARLY ACCESS TO PARTS 2-4 WILL BE GIVEN TO OLO MEMBERS
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Author's note: I relied tremendously on reporting from the Ojai Valley News in assembling this report, in particular reporting by Kimberly Rivers and Marianne Ratcliffe. I'll continue to do so. I want to thank these women for their unwavering commitment to local news.
Editor’s note: Chandler’s title of “Assistant Superintendent of Business Services for the Ventura Unified School District” has been removed. Chandler held that position from October 1, 2020, according to Ventura Breeze, until sometime “in the last few months,” according to a tipster.
