District closing in on budget numbers

Jessica Garrison

NEWPORT-MESA -- Ring Mike Fine in his office at 1 in the morning,

and Newport Mesa’s assistant superintendent for business services likely

will answer the phone -- albeit with audible fatigue.

As the man in charge of the district’s money, Fine has been working

around the clock to finish the district’s final budget, which Fine said

will be about $120 million. This year, the budget is complicated by a

host of new state programs that come with intricate new bookkeeping

procedures.

Overall, said Fine, the district will receive more money that it did

last year, but local officials will have far less say in how to spend it.

Principals used to get lump sums to spend at their schools as they saw

fit, Fine said. Now they get money earmarked for specific purposes, which

have to be spent and accounted for in specific ways.

“Say schools used to get $40 in the form of two crisp twenties,” Fine

said. “Now, maybe they’re getting $45, but it’s coming down in ones,

fives, tens and twenties.”

This is not the only budget-related headache Fine and his

cheery-but-sleepy staff are facing.

Newport Mesa is also hovering right on the cusp between two radically

different ways of financing schools -- “revenue limit” vs. “basic aid.”

Which way the district eventually goes could have a huge impact on

programs such as Middle College High School and the school for homeless

children at Rea Elementary.

Right now, the district is “revenue limit,” which means it relies on

the state to give it money based on the number of students who come to

school each day.

But if local property taxes go up enough, the district could switch

back to funding itself solely from local taxes, one of only 50 or so of

California’s 1,110 school districts that qualify as “basic aid.”

This means it wouldn’t matter how many students enroll in the

district’s programs -- the district would still get the same amount of

money.

This would make a number of programs designed to attract students from

outside the district financial liabilities instead of money makers.

That’s part of the reason the much-heralded Community Day School, a

school for troubled students that board members approved last April, has

been put on the back burner. The other reason is that school officials

say they can’t find the right building for the school.

Board members will vote on the final budget Tuesday evening.