Financial Times

Supt. Cindy Marten and Trustee Richard Barrera have made the claim that the San Diego Unified School District (SDUSD) $124 Million Deficit was caused by a “structural deficit”.  Evidence from the California Department of Education  (CDE) shows this is an outright lie.

On a recent Voice of San Diego “Fact Check” episode on channel 7/39, here is what SDUSD Board President Richard Barrera and Superintendent Cindy Marten said:

“We still have to go forward with a structural deficit, we have to solve it.” – Trustee Richard Barrera

“Like I said, this is a long-term structural deficit.” Supt. Cindy Marten

A report provided by the California Department of Education (CDE) proves that the structural deficit claims by the SDUSD Board President and Superintendent are outright lies and merely a way to try and shift responsibility for the financial and human resource scandal away from themselves.

The CDE has given the SDUSD a “Qualified” Certification on it’s “First Interim Status Report, FY 2016-17” shown below:

What the report above tells us is that of the 1050 school districts in California, only 34 were certified as negative or qualified at first interim of this school year.

Under the operational guidance of “Ms. Management Marten”, San Diego Unified is one of the lowest 34….that is the bottom 3% of all districts.

ALL the 1016 California school district Boards of Education and Superintendents receiving a “Positive” Certification had the same, or worse, challenges as San Diego Unified.

They all had:

• A large increase in CalSTRS/CalPERS expenses
• To give raises to employees
• A large increase in funding from the State
• An increase in operating costs

They all DID NOT have the advantages of the SDUSD:

• A huge Finance Department advising them of the financial risks and opportunities.
• A huge Legal Department deflecting expensive lawsuits and contractual violations.
• Economies of scale that allowed expenditures to be spread across a wider operational base
• Huge purchasing power that provided deep discounts on everything from buildings and ball fields to computer equipment and paper clips.

If the “structural deficit” was real, if government receipts were way down (like in 2006-2007 to 2012-2013 when government financial contributions were way down due to the recession) many of those 116 School districts with “Positive Certifications” would be at far greater risk than San Diego Unified.

The truth is that government financial contributions started to go way up beginning in 2013/14  and the newly hired Marten went on a spending spree per the District Deeds amended Voice of San Diego chart below:

As the definition provided by the Financial Times indicates, there can be no structural deficit if the deficit is caused by “one-off or short-term factors” like financial mismanagement errors including Marten’s new departments, high priced consultants and outsourced services, additional layers of bureaucracy, executive promotions, across the board raises and no financial or operational accountability.

The facts are that:

• San Diego County had only two “Qualified” Certifications; SDUSD and Julian.
• Orange County had only one certified “Qualified” Certification.
• Riverside County had only one certified “Qualified” Certification.

The facts are that the bottom 3% “Qualified” rating falsely blamed on a mythical “structural deficit” exposes 2 things:

1. Supt. Cindy Marten is truly incapable performing the financial management duties required for a 1.2 billion dollar budget and does not have the experience, credentials or skill to operationally manage the SDUSD despite millions of dollars of financial and legal department support
2. The original mistake of Trustees Barrera, Evans and Beiser to hire unqualified Elementary School Principal Cindy Marten as Superintendent is willfully and consciously being covered up with outright lies to protect their political reputations and complicit guilt.

The Board of Education needs to finally take responsibility for their mistake in hiring an unqualified individual as Superintendent.

Unqualified Supt. Cindy Marten needs to immediately be given the option to resign or be fired for the benefit of all current and future SDUSD Students.

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