Gov.’s plan gives schools $2 billion
Marisa O’Neil
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced on Thursday a plan to alleviate
state budget problems by reducing the amount of money due to schools
by about $1.5 billion next year.
The proposed plan, announced by the governor and members of his
Education Coalition at a Sacramento middle school, will not take
money out of school districts’ pockets. Instead, schools would get a
$2 billion increase over last year’s funding, which is roughly half
the amount guaranteed by Proposition 98.
The proposal is a way to keep Schwarzenegger’s promise to increase
per-pupil funding while still saving money for rehabilitating the
state.
“It’s what we anticipated,” said Paul Reed, assistant
superintendent of business services for the Newport-Mesa Unified
School District. “There’s no way the state schools can be funded as
if there weren’t a state crisis. In that regard, it’s not a surprise.
Certainly, all the schools recognize we have to be part of solution.”
Under Proposition 98, which guarantees an increase in school
funding from property taxes each year, kindergarten through
12th-grade schools would have received a roughly $3.5 billion
increase in funds for the 2004-05 school year, Reed said. Instead,
they will receive $2 billion, according to the plan.
That reflects a one-time “rebasing” of Proposition 98 funds that
would be built back into the education budget later. Until more
details in the governor’s proposed budget come out, Reed said, he
can’t say exactly how Newport-Mesa schools will be affected. The
district’s budget is based on a worst-case scenario, he said.
“I’m a real pessimist,” Reed said. “I didn’t expect [the money] to
be there at all. We did our best to do our budget with no increase
from the state.”
Special programs would be most likely to suffer under the proposed
plan, Reed said.
The best part of this proposal, he said, is that it gives
districts some warning. Last year, the state took back $7 million in
the middle of the year.
Members of the PTA, the California School Boards Assn., the
California Assn. of School Business Officials, the Assn. of
California School Administrators, the California County
Superintendents Educational Services Assn. and the California
Teachers Assn. were in on the negotiations of the agreement,
according to a press release from the governor’s office.
The California Federation of Teachers, the labor union for
Newport-Mesa teachers, was not a part of the negotiations.
“[The governor] invited us to be at the unveiling of the proposal,
but since we weren’t part of the negotiations, it didn’t make much
sense for us to be there when we’re not even sure if we’re in support
of it or not,” said Martin Hittelman, senior vice president of the
California Federation of Teachers.
The union has not seen the details of the proposal, he said, but
they are opposed to lowering the Proposition 98 funding requirement
to schools. They want to wait and see “how it’s done and who it
hurts” before making a judgment.
“So far, the bias has not been toward services that help working
people but cutting tax rates for the most wealthy,” Hittelman said.
“When you look at a tax cut, you need to look at where the services
are lost and who loses. Often, the people who lose are the people who
have little to live on. They take services away from them, and the
money goes back to people so they can buy their Hummers.”
For now, the plan is still only a proposal. Once the budget comes
out today, it still has to be passed by the Legislature and signed by
the governor, Reed said.
“As I like to say: ‘It’s not over till the Austrian signs,’” he
said.
* MARISA O’NEIL covers education. She may be reached at (949)
574-4268 or by e-mail at [email protected].
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