Budget Proposal is a Mixed Bag for State Education (CA)

October 7, 2010

A state budget deal cobbled together with spending cuts and creative accounting may provide positive news for education across California and particularly in the Coachella Valley.

“This definitely is much better than what we had planned but it’s still a far cry from what education should be funded and what we’re owed,” said Jim Novak, assistant superintendent of Business Services at Palm Springs Unified School District.

The budget plan created by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and top lawmakers would suspend the state’s education-funding guarantee and lower school spending by $3 billion statewide.

More than half of that cutback would be made by delaying payment to schools until next fiscal year.

These deferred payments cause cash flow problems for school districts, which devote 80 percent or more of annual budgets to employee salaries and benefits.

“It becomes even difficult to meet payroll and then if you can’t, you have to borrow money and borrowing money costs money,” said Ricardo Medina, superintendent of Coachella Valley Unified School District.

It’s still unclear how the deferrals will impact local school budgets, officials said.

Local school districts reduced 2010-11 budgets by $8 million to $15 million through layoffs, spending cuts and dipping into reserves.

The budget proposal avoids the deepest cuts proposed by Schwarzenegger in May, such as the elimination of California’s main welfare program and child care for 140,000 children of low-income families.

Local school districts as well as privately operated child care centers have had to turn away families or shut down completely because this proposal left them without funding.

More than 600 children lost child care in the east valley when centers operated by Coachella Valley Unified School District and Campesinos Unidos shut down this summer.

Palm Springs Unified School District told parents last month that state-funded preschool programs serving 472 children would shut down Nov. 30 without state funding.

University of California and California State University systems would each receive about $200 million to make up for previous cuts and would be fully funded for projected enrollment growth.

The plan includes other cuts, such as lower pension levels for future state employees and a pay cut and potential payroll freeze for state workers.

No new taxes or fees are proposed.

The proposal also counts on about $5.3 billion in federal funding and relies on optimistic revenue assumptions.

Lawmakers are expected to vote today on the plan — less than 24 hours after details of the budget proposal were released.

The budget is already the latest in modern history.

“It’s about time,” Medina said. “I’m always frustrated when our state legislators can’t come to some compromise agreement sooner so that we can get on with the business of educating the children of our community.”