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A community advisory committee was unable to offer any solid recommendations to help the Berkeley Unified School District with its financial crisis, and the main culprit was time. 

“A group this large, this diverse cannot in the time given to us, given the fact that we all have other jobs to do in our daily lives, come to as complicated an issue as this with really responsible insights,” Don Read, a member of the Blue Ribbon Resources Advisory Committee, told the school board last week. 

Committee members concluded that they didn’t have enough time or information to be able to make a recommendation to the board on where cuts could be made or where the BUSD could find additional revenue. The district is looking at significant budget deficits for the current and upcoming fiscal years. 

The committee, which only met five times, was formed in February and was given the charge of offering input on how the district could restructure its budget or find outside funding sources. In the end, the main recommendation the group made was that the BUSD needed to create “a permanent citizens committee on budget and resource issues.” 

During their meetings, some committee members said it was difficult to thoroughly analyze the district’s financial situation because the budget documents were tough to read and interpret. 

Read echoed that sentiment, noting, though, that he wasn’t speaking for all of the more than two dozen people who served on the committee. 

“I for one did not feel that I got a good sense of the budget, and I’d worked on budget issues on other committees of the board before, but I think those were my limitations,” he said. 

But he felt that a permanent group could get a better sense of the district’s finances and could make solid recommendations for future budgets. 

“It was unfortunate that the timeline did not allow the committee to be able to come to particular recommendations, but I like the idea of establishing a permanent committee on budget and resource issues,” said Board President Joaquin Rivera. 

An outgrowth of the committee’s work was the formation of Advocates for Public Schools, which is petitioning the state to significantly increase its funding for public education. Today, the group will be represented at the rally in Sacramento supporting more spending for schools. 

Director Ted Schultz said that even though the committee was unable to provide direction for the board on the financial picture, he was pleased that the group didn’t leave “any stone unturned.” 

And Vice President Terry Doran said the committee’s work showed that the budget decisions the board will be forced to make are “more political than fiscal.” 

“I think that your challenge that we gave you, judging from the neutral nature of this resolution, I think further emphasizes the complexity of our budget and the fact that there are not easy solutions to reorganizing our budget to do things in a different way,” he said, “or this committee, with the tremendous expertise that it included, I believe would have brought the recommendations very clearly to us, and they couldn’t.” 

The committee will hold its final meeting on May 16 and decide whether its members are willing to continue serving, or if the board should follow another option for creating the permanent committee. That recommendation will be presented to the board on May 17.