New Budgeting Method on BHUSD's Radar

The Beverly Hills Unified School District is holding a special meeting Thursday to discuss a budgeting concept that some school board members believe could help the district through current and future fiscal challenges.

BHUSD is facing to the 2011-12 school budget due to reduced funding from the state. Board members have had to issue possible layoff notices to teachers, clerical staff and at least one administrator.

"Zero-based budgeting is a different way to deploy our resources and should help us keep more teachers," said Vice President Brian Goldberg, who has advocated for this method of budgeting for the last three years.

Zero-based budgeting, or ZBB, means starting with a budget of zero and adding from there based on spending priorities until the available funds are exhausted. Rather than using ZBB, school districts typically use their existing budget as a base for the next year and then subtract (or occasionally add) services based on funds available.

Ronald Bennett, an expert in school finance and zero-based budgeting, will lead a presentation on ZBB from 3:30-6:30 p.m. in the Jon Cherney Lecture Hall at Beverly Hills High School. Bennett is the president and CEO of School Services of California, Inc., an agency that provides consulting services to public school districts in the state.

"I am gratified that the board is spending time to learn about zero-based budgets, [but] this presentation should be just the start of evaluating our budget process," Goldberg told Patch, noting that he has requested a board retreat with district staff to further explore ZBB.

Pursuing ZBB is of particular relevance to basic aid districts, Goldberg said, because those districts get a fixed amount of money each year from property taxes. Beverly Hills became a last year; most districts in the state are funded on a per-pupil allotment.

Board President Lisa Korbatov has spoken in favor of ZBB, but the three remaining board members have yet to take a public position. Bennett’s presentation may help sway those members' opinions one way or another.

Why have school districts been reluctant to embrace ZBB? "It takes a lot of time and a lot of work to go through the budget line by line," Goldberg said.

I hope that community members take the time to come to today's study session and become familiar with ZBB. Given the financial challenges that the state and our district face, this form of budgeting is worthy of consideration.

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