During its November 19, 2015, meeting, the Board of Education heard two discussion items related to the potential unification of a Malibu Unified School District (MUSD). In response to information presented at that meeting, the Board of Education members and members of the public expressed particular concern about the negative financial consequences to the resulting Santa Monica Unified School District (SMUSD) arising from potential unification. The Board of Education expressed its unanimous desire for the co-existence of an SMUSD and an MUSD as two excellent school districts serving their respective communities and providing the best educational opportunities for their respective students, as long as it can be accomplished in a manner that does not have a negative impact on the financial condition of the remaining SMUSD. In January 2016, the Board of Education created the Malibu Unification Negotiations Committee (MUNC) to engage in negotiations in an effort to resolve financial concerns raised by reports to the board from district staff and the district’s Financial Oversight Committee (FOC) regarding unification of a separate MUSD. MUNC was tasked with addressing financial issues that comprise a subset of the statutory criteria that the State Board of Education would apply before approving the reorganization of a school district via the petition procedure contained in the California Education Code. MUNC held forty-nine public meetings and obtained advice from legal and education finance consultants including School Services of CA (SSC) over a period of fifteen months and prepared a final report to the Board of Education dated February 24, 2017. MUNC presented its report two the community in two public meetings, one in Santa Monica on March 21, 2017, and one in Malibu on March 27, 2017. The Board of Education discussed the MUNC’s initial report on March 7, 2017, and again on May 30, 2017. During the May 30, 2017, special board meeting, individual board members raised questions and concerns regarding the MUNC’s report’s recommendations and the status of committee’s discussions, including but not limited to concerns about components of the proposed Revenue Neutrality Formula and about the meaning of “significant adverse financial effects,” and as a result, directed the committee to refine the proposed formula and further develop a rationale for a time frame during which payments from an MUSD to an SMUSD would cease. Also during the May 30, 2017, special board meeting, the Board of Education directed executive staff to determine if SSC could be engaged to conduct a peer review of the MUNC’s revised calculations and projections to consider questions raised and concerns expressed, to offer its expertise in the quest for an approach to unification that would result in the elimination of significant adverse financial effects on an SMUSD. MUNC delivered its Supplemental Memorandum Report to the superintendent in mid-July 2017, and it was appropriately forwarded to SSC for analysis. SSC delivered its draft analysis of the MUNC reports to the superintendent in early October. The district’s executive staff and representatives from SSC then met with small, non-Brown Act groups of board members to explain the detail of the report. SSC then delivered its final analysis report to the Superintendent on October 23, 2017. SSC also developed a summary of its revenue options report. During this time, the City of Malibu submitted its petition for the unification of an MUSD to the Los Angeles County Office of Education in early September 2017 in the form of a resolution that was adopted by the City of Malibu in September 2015. The petition, as submitted, does not provide any mechanism for addressing the fiscal impacts about which the board has been concerned and as detailed in SSC’s recent report. The petition will be formally presented to the County Committee on School District Organization on November 1, 2017, at which time the committee will determine when the petition will come back for consideration (either early December or mid- to late January). During tonight’s special meeting, the SMMUSD Board of Education will discuss the findings in both MUNC reports as well as the analysis from SSC. Representatives from SSC will be present. Based on board direction, staff could schedule action items to consider a position on the City of Malibu’s petition for unification as well as the MUNC and/or SSC financial proposals. |