THE SAN FRANCISCO Unified School District very narrowly dodged not just a bullet but a bazooka-size projectile last week when a strike that would have virtually shut down the schools was averted with only hours to spare.

A tremendous amount of the credit for staving off this crisis goes to board president Eric Mar, who kept the district talking until the two sides could reach a deal, and Mayor Gavin Newsom, who intervened to encourage some reluctant board members to go along.

But another major breakthrough came a few days before the final strike deadline, when the city controller, Ed Harrington, met with board members to present his analysis of the district budget. Newsom brought Harrington in to provide an independent evaluation of what the district staff was saying – and his role demonstrates a major problem with the way the school board and administration currently do business.

From the start of the talks, Supt. Arlene Ackerman insisted that the union's proposal would bankrupt the district and drive it into state receivership. She and her staff stuck to that line all the way up to the moment a strike was inevitable, sources tell us. But Harrington, we're told, was able to present a different picture: Meeting the union's demands would be expensive and involve some cuts in other areas, he said, but some of those cuts should have been made long ago anyway – and besides, it's not good long-term fiscal planning to systematically underpay your staff and risk this kind of problem. A reasonable settlement, he told the board, would by no means bankrupt the district.

That helped sway some reluctant members to accept a deal with the union.

If an independent budget analyst had been available from the start of the talks, the situation might never have become this dire. The San Francisco supervisors use that model: Harvey Rose, the budget analyst, works for the board and only for the board and doesn't have to answer to the mayor or any departments or commissions.

All of Rose's reports are made public immediately and help not only the supervisors but the press and public to understand the reality of the situation, beyond all the hype.

This is far from an academic exercise: The San Francisco public school teachers are working without a contract, and there's talk that if a settlement isn't reached by the first of the year, the teachers union might strike, utterly paralyzing the schools.

Before we go through this painful and potentially disastrous process again, the board needs to find the money to hire an outside budget expert. And if the school district is too strapped to afford it, the supervisors – who are now giving the schools millions of dollars a year that need to be watched – should designate someone in Rose's office as the school board's budget analyst.

If the district would bring on some outside budget help – and agree to abide by the city's Sunshine Ordinance – the teachers, the staff, the public, and the board members could stop making bad decisions in the dark.