Dynamic Duo Getting The Most Bang From State Bucks, West Valley School District Officials Are Superheroes Of Finance

Meet Dave Smith and Doug Matson, the Batman and Robin of the West Valley School District. Before those of you who know these two button-down guys start snorting, consider:

They do make the complex world of school finance seem adventurous. They did manage a highly publicized downsizing of 12 teaching positions this spring and three months later - kazam - negotiated their teacher union contract without public controversy.

Holy dollar signs! In seven years, the West Valley superintendent and business manager built their reserve fund from zero - or in the hole, depending on which month you look at - to a high point last year of $3.5 million. During the same seven years, the district hired nearly 100 teachers and aides and grew by 200 students. Smith also presided over a growth in the special education and gifted programs.

How did they do it?

By aggressively building programs the state was willing to pay for.

“My job, my No. 1 job is to provide as much as I can for the kids in this district,” Smith said. “I’ll gamble a little.”

But Smith backs his gambles with a reserve fund that can cushion the bumpy ride that comes when the state changes its mind about what to pay for. And that happens regularly.

“We’re very aggressive in terms of watching the state. All of a sudden they’ll change their funding. You can get nailed,” Matson said.

Smith and Matson have worked together for 13 years. They first teamed up in the Newport School District. There, too, they built a financial cushion in a district that formerly had none.

A reserve fund is emergency money. It fluctuates from month to month, depending on the flow of revenues and expenses. It’s usually measured as a percentage of the school district’s total budget. In school districts around the state, the average reserve fund is 7 percent.

Smith and Matson want their reserve fund safely above 5 percent. That $3.5 million translated into a 17.5 percent reserve fund, momentary though it was. This March, when Smith announced that he had to tighten the district’s belt, he was dealing with $1.2 million in state cuts and the prospect of more in two years, when the local levy amount drops.

Some districts, including Central Valley and East Valley, pride themselves on running lean and mean. Not West Valley.

“We don’t like ‘lean and mean,”’ said Norma Ventris, West Valley school board chairwoman.

“Our people are very aggressive about getting grants. Very, very aggressive,” Ventris said.

“All programs ought to pay for themselves,” Smith said. That means special education, transportation, vocational education, traffic safety education and others.

For instance, when Smith and Matson arrived here, West Valley’s special education budget was smaller than Newport’s. That didn’t make sense, the two thought, since West Valley had almost three times as many kids as Newport.

“I asked ‘Are there kids in West Valley who could benefit by special education programs?”’ Smith said.

The answer was yes.

“When we walked in here we hired another special ed psych,” he said. “And we were $100,000 in the hole” in that program.

But the state paid for the psychologist and more. The special education budget grew from $600,000 a year to $1.6 million. And instead of needing help from the general fund, the program was injecting dollars into the fund.

“The first thing I did when I walked in the door was I wanted to see which programs were losing money and which programs were paying their way,” Smith said.

The state funding formulas for various programs are so complicated, Matson said, that it’s tough explaining them to “someone who doesn’t live school finance.”

Matson’s skill is in knowing those formulas. Smith’s is in seeing the big picture. The two men clearly hold each other in high regard.

“We think a lot alike,” Matson said. “A lot of time I kind of know where Dave is going before we get there.”

It’s tough to find anyone critical of Smith’s and Matson’s fiscal management. Even the teachers union leadership praises Smith.

“I give Doug and Dave a tremendous amount of credit … When the money is there, he’ll spend it on the children,” said Trey Yale, past president of the West Valley Education Association. “When it’s not, he’ll have to tighten the district’s belt.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo