June 14, 2006 - Top Stories

Seniors to graduate Thursday

New postmaster promises to concentrate on customer service

John M. Fuller, Valley Center’s new postmaster, arrived at his post last week. This week he was out and about meeting his new customers, learning where things are and getting the lay of the land.

Already he’s got some ideas for improving customer service. But he was surprised to see how much Valley Center has grown since the days when he used to drive through here. It currently has 12 rural routes that deliver to 5,207 addresses. It also has 2,254 post office boxes and 23 employees. “I used to remark that Valley Center was like Northern California, Sonoma County, where I grew up,” he told The Roadrunner this week.

The new postmaster is not unaware of some customer dissatisfaction, and he’s made addressing that his top priority. “The major challenge I have here, really, is customer service,” he said. “To ensure that the customers get the mail addressed to them. I know we have had some mis-delivery issues. That’s one challenge.”

Another is to “get new carriers on board. I’m losing a rural carrier. That puts us behind the eight ball. I need to aggressively pursue that. If you aren’t fully staffed you can’t give the customers the kind of timely delivery they expect and deserve.”

He added, “We’re in the business to serve the public and we should be respectful of that. We should give the customer what they pay for. That’s my whole goal. I want to keep the people of Valley Center happy.”

To do that, he believes that communication is the key.

Sometimes the perception of errors is compounded far more than the reality. The local post office is often a good target. “People use the term ‘go postal’ and people like to throw darts. Sometimes it is a perception, but one mistake can make up for thousands of deliveries.”

“I want to keep the people of Valley Center happy,” he said. “Let me see if I can fix the problems. I have an open door. Don’t make an appointment. Just come in. If I have some other commitments I might not be there, but usually if they want to see me, feel free to come in.”

One thing that will impact postal customers in coming months is the widening of Valley Center Road, he said. “It’s going to impede carriers, make it a little more dangerous to get in and out of those cones. It’s going to be a matter of displacing mail boxes and relocating them until they can be put in the ground permanently,” said Fuller.

Fuller comes to VC from Murrieta, where he was the officer in charge. He’s also a resident of Murrieta. He takes over from former postmaster Joe Prentice, who retired recently.

Fuller’s formal installation date and swearing in ceremony will be announced later.

He plans to become fully involved with the community, and will probably join the local Rotary Club, he said.

Fuller began working for the Postal Service in 1988 as a letter carrier at the Fallbrook Post Office. In 1991 he was promoted to delivery supervisor at the La Mesa Post Office. He went on to become customer service supervisor at the Fallbrook office in 1993 and has worked as a customer service supervisor at the Sun City Post Office since 2003.

He and his wife, Donna, a third grade teacher in Murrieta, have seven grown children. This is a second career. His first was as a 23-year Marine, who served in Vietnam, California and Japan.

New Parks manager welcomed

Valley Center Parks & Rec. District board president Eric Jockinsen welcomes new general manager Doug Johnson.

He will take over July 1 from retiring GM Joyce Johnson who has been with the district for 15 years. Johnson has 30-plus years of facilities management and operations and is currently with the San Dieguito school district. He is a San Diego state graduate in recreation administration.

Report explains where money went

The devastating Paradise fires of 2003 may be a big culprit in the school district’s budget crises this year, according to an independent review of its finances for the past five years. The review provided answers to the question: Where did the money go?

In the five years covered by the study the district’s reserves fell from 19% to 3%. This year’s operating budget includes $591,100 in cuts in addition to slashed school site budgets. In view of the year-long salary contract impasse the district felt it was important to have an independent review of the situation.

The review was presented Thursday night to the school board by Barbara Dean of FCMAT (Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team), an arm of the Kern County Office of Education. It shows that the district is basically healthy financially. After this year’s tight budget it should begin rebuilding reserves. The speed of that recovery will depend on how much money it gets from the state, which has not yet approved a budget.

Several factors that contributed to this year’s fiscal woes were outlined in the report.

The fires, combined with the fact that the federal government is always three years behind reality in computing impact aid to schools for low income and Indian students, created a perfect financial storm. The same year that the then newly unified district’s total expenditures rose from $16,820,000 (2003) to $29,831,000 (2004), federal aid went from $3,358,240 to $2,003,181. Then the fires of 2003 subtracted perhaps dozens of students who had been counted for impact aid. “After we unified and our expenditures went up we were getting less entitlement. The fires caused us to lose qualified numbers of ADA,” said Dean. Note: This year’s ADA (average daily attendance) is 4,033. This is multiplied by $5832. That amounts to about $32.96 per student per day. This added to the problem of declining enrollment overall. The district found out in February that it would not be receiving the anticipated federal impact aid funds. That’s when it realized it had a problem.

Reserve Shrinks
There was also a widespread perception that something was “wrong” when the reserve dropped from its high of 19%. In the 2003-2004 school year $4,230,085 was transferred from the reserves to provide matching funds given by the state to the district for the Lilac Elementary School and for modernization. That same year was also the first year that VCPUSD was legally required to transfer 3% of unrestricted funds to “routine restricted maintenance.” Between them these two actions drew down what had been 19% reserves to the legal limit of 3%. No general funds were used to match state grants for the Maxine Theater. Those funds came from developer’s fees. “We built up the reserve to nineteen percent, knowing that we were going to use it for the Lilac School,” said Supt. Lou Obermeyer in an interview with The Roadrunner on Monday. If these transfers had not been made, said Dean’s report, the reserves would have been 20% for this year.

At the same time, “overall expenditures have remained consistent, with employee benefits being the only operating category to increase annually,” said the report. The operating budget went from $29,831,000 in 2004 to $33,896,000 in 2005, an increase of 12%. That was the year when $4 million was transferred from the reserves to the building fund. Of course, the district administration was aware of these factors. However, it was felt that an independent review would clear the air. Particularly in view of a negotiating impasse with school teachers.

Decrease in impact aid
The district lost about $2 million in federal impact aid. This can be traced partially to the 2003 fires. They caused many low-income families, who lived primarily on the reservations, to move. In many cases their homes, often trailers or other substandard housing, were destroyed and not rebuilt. Even though some students eventually returned, federal impact aid is based on expenditures three years prior, total district ADA and the number of qualifying students. In 2003, the year of the fires, federal impact aid was $3,358,240 out of a budget of $16,820,000. This year, by contrast, it had fallen to $1,391,246 out of a budget of $36,176,000 and is expected to be lower for the next two years.

The study was conducted by Barbara Dean of Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team (FCMAT) a team provided by the County Office of Education. California’s AB1200 provides for county offices of education to work with school districts to improve fiscal procedures, standards and accountability. The school district contacted the Kern County Office in March to ask for a review. It charged $6,000 for the service. Dean visited the district from April 25-27. She conducted interviews and gathered data.

Looking Ahead
The other part of Dean’s work was a multi-year financial forecast for 2006-07 and 2007-2008 based on current trends. Dean warned that since federal impact funds have fluctuated downward for several years, the district should be careful how it allocates these funds in the future. “Consider not dedicating them to ongoing expenses,” she advised.

The FCMAT report forecasts that the district reserves will be 8.14% for 2006-07 and 13.34% for 2007-08 based on the budget that the board passed Thursday night. These forecasts don’t reflect any future negotiations or the contract that is expected to be approved this month.

Health is Good
Although the overall fiscal health of the district is “good,” according to the report, Dean suggested ways it could be improved. This includes increasing the percentage of ADA to enrollment, which is currently 92.7%. That number, said Dean, is “on the low side. Clearly our upper grades tend to have a lower ratio. If we can improve that by one percent the additional funding is $200,000. “That doesn’t mean additional staffing. It’s the same kids in school more often.” She suggested offering incentives to each school site to increase attendance.

She offered these suggestions also (all of which have already started to be implemented since Dr. Obermeyer joined the district in January):
• The budget should reflect and quantify the district wide goals and objectives.
• Budget revisions should be completed at interim reporting periods and at any time that changes to existing programs or the addition of new ones take place.
• Communication at all levels about the budget will help demystify uncertainty about the receipt and use of funds.
• Fiscal analysis of all collective bargaining proposals should be completed before agreements are finalized.

She also recommended what she called “position control.”
“Employee salaries and benefits make up 81.991% of the combined general fund budget and 89.016% of the unrestricted general budget. While the combined percentage is low the unrestricted percentage is high,” said the report.
“The district should continue to work with SDCOE (San Diego County Office of Education) and other sources to acquire an integrated position control system.
“In order to maintain appropriate internal controls, once a new positon control system is acquired the responsibilities for data input should be separated between the business office and personnel office.

Budget Passes
After the FCMAT report the board passed its budget for 2006-2007. This includes a 5.92% COLA (cost of living adjustment) for all programs except special education. The budget supposes K-12 enrollment of 4,505. It assumes ADA of 4033 and reductions of $591,100. Revenues for next year are calculated at $29,474,988 in unrestricted funds and $7,321,477 in restricted funds.

Estimated expenditures are as follows:
Certificated Salaries, $14,929,706 unrestricted and $3,142,604 restricted; Classified Salaries, $3,534,502 unrestricted and $1,839,359 restricted; Employee Benefits, $4,759,366 unrestricted and $1,423,283 restricted; Supplies & Materials, $511,387 unrestricted and $1,397,363 restricted; Operating Expense, $2,232,355 unrestricted and $1,296,659 restricted and Other Outgo, $114,793 unrestricted and $175,000 restricted.

The total expenditure is expected to be $26,082,109 unrestricted and $9,274,268 restricted.

Planners give County ultimatum on GP2020

What’s an advisory group with no actual authority to do when the County Dept. of Planning & Land Use ignores its recommendations? Give an ultimatum!

Monday night the VC Community Planning Group (VCCPG) voted unanimously (with 11 members present) to tell the County that unless it reconciles the differences between its proposed GP2020 road network and Valley Center’s density, that the group won’t support Valley Center’s plan before the Board of Supervisors later this summer.

Larry Glavinic, chairman of the GP2020 subcommittee, reported that all nine members of that body supported calling the County to task for not making its road network agree with the density it’s recommending. “One of the important things of GP2020 was that it was to be an iterative process,” remarked Glavinic.

Note: The dictionary defines iteration this way: “a procedure in which repetition of a sequence of operations yields results successively closer to a desired result.”

That means, said Glavinic, “You come up with a land use, and you check it against how much the roads can bear. It goes back and forth. Ultimately, you get something that works. The reality now is that this isn’t going to work because the roads aren’t going to work. If you do land use and circulation, you do it until at some point it’s in balance.”

Essentially the planners’ point is that the roads the County is planning to go along with the density it is insisting upon don’t mesh. From the get go, they say, the roads will be built to fail.

“At this late date, when you finally put the circulation network with the land use it brought things into perspective that some things flat don’t work,” said Glavinic.

The County has actually pushed for a much higher density in the Country Town Villages) than the planners are willing to accept. It is pressured by State Law and the requirement that all communities submit to “Smart Growth.”

The planners approved the following resolution:

“That the VCCPG authorize its chairperson to send a letter to the DPLU director, with a copy to Supervisor Horn, requesting that staff make no recommendations regarding Valley Center in its next report (June 2006) to the Board of Supervisors on GP2020 until the VCCPG is presented with data showing the reductions in residential density and commercial intensity necessary to make the VCCPG’s proposed circulation element work (i.e. no six lane roads and no LOS (level of service) E’s or F’s to complete the iterative process promised by county staff.”

“We just want something that works or else we just start over,” Glavinic. “At the end of the day there has to be a plan that can be executed rather than putting us in a box canyon.”

Some planners were worried what might happen if the group doesn’t support staff’s recommendation. Planner Kris Preston asked: “If we do this and there is no recommendation, what might that open us up to?”

Glavinic noted that back in 1998 enough protests by planning groups forced the Board of Supervisors to scrap the first run at a General Plan Amendment. “This second run is better, but if this doesn’t work, we’re stupid if we say ‘OK,’ ” he said. Keith Simpson, planning group chairman, added, “If we make a big stink it’s possible that things could be made to work.”

The Valley Roadrunner
P.O.B. 1529, Valley Center, CA 92082
Tel. 760.749.1112 Fax 760.749.1688
Website: www.valleycenter.com
Email: editor@valleycenter.com

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