As school districts across California work to finalize next year’s budgets, their financial future grew even more uncertain after Gov. Jerry Brown released a May budget revision that puts the budget deficit at $16 billion rather than the forecast figure of $9.2 billion.
Last Friday, the nonpartisan legislative analyst’s office (LAO) announced the budget deficit may be even worse — $900 million greater than the governor’s latest estimate.
No wonder school administrators are worried.
If the governor’s tax-increase initiative fails and new revenues are not achieved, the potential trigger cut for K–14 programs is $5.5 billion. Anna Borges, the state director of student transportation at the California Department of Education, said this represents an increase of $656.7 million over the $4.8-billion trigger reduction proposed in the original budget.
The trigger cut for school transportation remains $618.7 million for 2012–2013. Although Gov. Brown restored $248 million in transportation cuts earlier this year, Borges noted that the $2.8 billion repayment of deferrals in 2012–2013 will not occur if the trigger cut is implemented.
“It looks like they may just be looking at a reduction in the school year. But there will have to be a $2.7-billion reduction in programs,” Borges told School Transportation News.
School districts will have the flexibility to reduce the school year by a combined total of 15 days in 2012–2013 and 2013–2014 per the revised budget. This will allow districts to use a combination of reserves, reductions in the school year and other savings options to absorb the budget cut over two years.
Already, many districts, such as Southern Humboldt Unified and Coachella Valley Unified School Districts, have been forced to reduce school bus service and lay off transportation staff. Long Beach Unified had to eliminate all regular-education busing, while Los Angeles Unified sued the state for slashing transportation funding, a case later thrown out of court.
In response to the state’s worsening budget crisis, the California School Boards Association announced it would endorse both revenue initiatives on the ballot this November — the governor’s as well as Molly Munger’s “Our Children, Our Future” initiative. The latter would raise more than $10 billion in new funding for public schools, according to the group’s website. The governor’s Schools and Local Public Safety Act increases income-tax rates on higher incomes for five years and requires additional tax revenues to be deposited into a newly created Education Protection Account.
For the 2012–2013 budget, the LAO forecasts this measure would generate $4.8 billion of additional revenues, while the Department of Finance forecasts $6.9 billion.
