By Michael Armijo

Walnut – The Walnut Valley Unified School District announced that it wont be able to pay their bills this school year, which opens them up to a possible “take over” by the county. The board voted 4-0, with board member Larry Reddinger absent, to declare a ‘negative certification” on their annual budget. “We are 90% salaries and benefits,” said one school official, who asked not to be named. “We can remove the negative certification if and when we get concessions from the teachers union,” they added. “Negative certification” means that the district is declaring it cannot pay its bills and is desperately short of cash. This status is reported to the LA County Office of Education (LACOE) and is required to be reported by state law. “There are only four ways to really solve this situation,” said the official. “One: reduce salaries, two: require furlough days for teachers, three: begin layoffs, or four: a freeze. But the Union isn’t budging, so the district had no choice but to declare the negative certification.” District officials said that layoffs were not something they want to consider, but with 90% of the budget being salaries and benefits, there may not be any choice. “Area districts have been utilizing furlough days to balance their budget for the past two years,” they said. “We haven’t had any. And we haven’t increased spending, but with ‘step and column’ plus rising health care and utilities, the budget keeps increasing without voting on a single expenditure.” If the district and the Union cannot agree, then the county has the opportunity to take over and is watching the district closely. Inglewood Unified is the only other district that has been stripped of its power. They also claimed “negative certification,” and has now lost all power. LACOE can now force Walnut Valley to explain how it ran short of cash, and if not satisfied with the districts plans to resolve the issue, they could begin to take over power. “Basically, the district used the money from the sale of the landfill they received to balance the budget,” officials said. “This year, the county said they can no longer use that money, which created the financial crisis. That’s how the district has been able to avoid furlough days for the past few years.” The district is facing a $4.7 million deficit to its approximately $110 million annual budget. The administration has asked the teachers to accept furlough days to help close the gap, which will amount to a cut in pay, but the teachers union has refused, according to the Walnut Valley Educators Association website. Laying off teachers, which the district said they will do if the union doesn’t accept the furlough days, will mean larger class sizes. There has already been a huge increase in kindergarten this year. The union wants more teachers hired, and the district wants to keep the class sizes the same and instead provide teachers’ aides to help out in classes with more than 22 students. For more information, please go to http://www.wvusd.k12.ca.us.