REA president accuses Rialto Unified of decade-long budgeting 'gimmicks,' urges scrutiny

Rialto, Calif. — Tobin Brinker, president of the Rialto Education Association, told the Rialto Unified School District Board of Education on Feb. 12 that the district has produced persistent year-end surpluses that warrant closer scrutiny and that vacancies and accounting practices have constrained pay raises for staff.

Brinker told the board and public that over the last decade the district’s cumulative surplus is “about $250,000,000,” averaging roughly $25,000,000 a year, and he urged trustees to press staff about budgeting assumptions and vacancy management.

“If something happens once or twice, it's easy to write it off as an anomaly or a freak occurrence. But when something happens exactly the same way for 10 years in a row, then we have to believe that it happened on purpose,” Brinker said. “They're stashing the money in books and materials, and then surprise surprise at the end of the year, we've got this big surplus. It's a gimmick.”

Brinker cited specific line items and salary-savings figures he said the union has observed: about $75,000,000 reported for books and materials in the last two years, and salary-savings figures he gave as $8,000,000 for certificated positions, $4,000,000 for classified positions and about $7,000,000 in salaries and benefits.

“The money that's raised today is for the kids that are here today,” Brinker said, urging the board to examine vacancy rates and the district’s practice of creating positions that remain unfilled. He said those tactics have contributed to an ability to underpromise wages during negotiations.

The board went into closed session during the meeting to discuss personnel and labor negotiations; when the board reconvened it reported taking no action and cited employee privacy rights in declining further comment.

Brinker said the district could afford a more favorable cost-of-living adjustment for employees if budgeting practices changed and vacancies were filled. He asked trustees to ask “really tough questions of staff” during the closed-session budget and negotiation discussions.

The district did not announce budget actions at the Feb. 12 meeting. Materials presented to the board are available upon request from the superintendent’s office.