The struggle to make sure the budget covers children's real needs

The consternation over items inserted into San Francisco’s proposed Children’s Fund budget at the last minute – seemingly at whim – continued at a Board of Supervisors committee meeting on Monday.

To quote from my July 3 post about the controversy: During the budgeting process, the Mayor’s Office swooped in at the last minute with proposals that had not been subjected to the sunshine and scrutiny that’s supposed to be part of the process. It’s as if they cut the line when everyone else had patiently followed the rules and waited our turn

The forces involved in adding those budget items “kind of blew it,” Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin said at the July 7 meeting (the supes’ Government Audit and Oversight Committee) – though Peskin generously stipulated that he wasn’t pointing to any specific individuals. The committee took no action at the hearing, and the process continues to the supes’ Budget and Finance Committee (Wednesday, July 16, 1 p.m.; Board of Supervisors Chambers at City Hall – item’s position on the agenda unknown right now). Concerned citizens are urged to come and speak.

The Citizens Advisory Committee (CAC) to the Department of Children, Youth and their Families, which makes recommendations on the Children’s Fund budget, urged rejection of all but one of the five remaining items inserted by the mayor’s office in the budget.

A series of speakers at the July 7 meeting voiced concern about “respecting the process” – engaging in full public discussion of all items proposed for funding. “Everybody’s putting in their pet projects,” CAC member Lorraine Woodruff-Long complained, “and we’re walking away from the public input process.”

The insertion of some specialized “pet projects” into the budget could be interpreted by the uninformed as indicating that there’s more than enough money for children’s programs – that all real needs are met and there’s spare money to play around with. I can’t emphasize this strongly enough: That’s not true!

My July 3 post described vital school cafeteria improvements that have been in line for city money. I worked on seeking funding for those improvements, so I admittedly have a bias, but those are clearly needs that haven’t been met.

Many speakers mentioned the need for more funding for child care throughout the community. I would add: seamless child care. Currently, it appears that parents are presented with a long list of potential child care providers and told to do the legwork and see if any of them will work out. Child care setups vary from SFUSD school to school to school, so parents have to research the specific situation at each individual school. Obviously, that’s an oppressively inefficient system. (It also drives too many families to private schools, which grasp that it's essential to simply say "yes, we have child care for you; no problem" -- at a cost, of course.)

San Francisco parents need certainty that they can get child care before and after school, at every school, without stressing, on a sliding scale – and elsewhere in the community too. (And child care at school sites outside school hours, by the way, is not an educational expense -- not an item to come from school budgets and classroom needs. In my opinion, zero school dollars should go to this area. On-site child care before and after school should be funded with city money as a resource supporting the community’s families.)

Any funding that makes that happen should be a very high priority.

And just to dispel any remaining notions that all needs are met, I know that my kids’ current and former schools have all cut their supply budgets to almost nothing, in the hope that they can scrounge supplies (paper, pencils, Scotch tape, staples – those frivolities) and use the money to keep other programs going. You know that $100,000 that Newsom wants to allocate to discuss a muddled plan for a new school in Mission Bay, at a time when our district is probably looking at closing existing schools? That could provide a desperately needed $1,000 each for office and classroom supplies to 100 SFUSD schools.

Here are the five items the Mayor’s Office proposed that remain on the table.

This is the one that the CAC recommended including in the budget:

• $250,000: San Francisco Promise – Expansion of a college track program guaranteeing admittance for all SFUSD students who meet San Francisco State University entrance requirements.

The CAC recommended against the other items:

• $50,000: Permanent Campaign – Social marketing campaign to raise public awareness of and support for public schools.
• $100,000: Science and Technology K-8 school – Planning resources for program development of a new magnet school in Mission Bay.
• $70,000: Mandarin Immersion – Expansion of a collaborative to increase availability of Mandarin and other language immersion programs throughout SFUSD.
• $60,000: Community Service – Infrastructure to link public school students to community service.


 

Topics: Board of Supervisors , children's funding , Newsom