Amended state budget still poses problems for schools

Gov. Schwarzenegger's revised state budget, submitted to the Legislature on May 14, will restore billions of dollars to education, but Las Virgenes Unified School District must still contend with a loss of more than $2 million in the coming year, said Karen Kimmel, the district's chief business official.

Initially, Las Virgenes stood to lose about $7 million, a cut that Superintendent Donald Zimring previously said could not be sustained. Zimring said the latest news from Sacramento is that free summer school programs might be canceled because of funding cuts.

The latest proposal is "convoluted," Kimmel said. Proposition 98, a constitutional minimum funding guarantee, will not be suspended, but the structure of education funding in California continues to be a problem. Education funding is currently determined by complex formulas based on the economy and the number of students, say experts. When the state economy thrives, schools benefit, but when there's a downturn, funding is reduced. The instability is troublesome to districts when they are building a budget, Kimmel said.

Funding will be flat for the costof-living allowance (COLA), so districts will continue to receive $5,788 per student, a sum that lands California at fourth from the bottom for per pupil funding. The district was supposed to receive a $5.7million hike in COLA. Making matters worse are declining enrollment and rising operational costs, Kimmel said.

Special education funding will also remain flat, she said.

In response to the revised budget, Zimring said, "While minimally funding Proposition 98 is a positive action, failure to provide for an increase for cost of living actually equates to an approximate $2-million loss in revenue to our district."

Smaller classroom sizes for kindergarten through third grade and ninth-grade English will be gone next year, Kimmel said. The lower student to teacher ratio was 20to1, but with the mandate lifted and zero funding, class sizes could rise to 30 students at all grade levels. This cut alone amounts to about $730,000 for Las Virgenes.

School site improvement money, and art, music and physical education block grants from the state will also disappear next year under the new budget. Technology funding, money for gifted education and English Language Learner programs have also been cut, Kimmel said.

Twenty-five faculty members received layoff notices, Kimmel said. Nine of these teachers, librarians or counselors are appealing the decision. If a librarian has more experience than a teacher, then she or he has the right to a teaching job, Kimmel said.

The governor's revised budget proposes to remedy the $16-billion shortfall with either an increase in the sales tax or borrowing against future lottery revenues.

Borrowing against the future profits of an expanded state lottery could be risky, some experts believe. Meanwhile, school districts are left wondering about their financial future.

"A new funding source to be voted on in November (the Budget Stabilization Act) does not address the immediate issue of our having to make decisions now regarding who to hire and who to terminate," Zimring said. "How can we responsibly hire staff based upon a hope that there will be funding down the road?"

Zimring admitted the governor's newest budget proposal was an "improvement," but added that public education is being used as a "pawn in a political game."

"The governor's January proposal, which would have cut $4.8 billion to public education, was clearly a ploy to try to have people accept cuts which were less egregious but are still not acceptable," Zimring said. "We should not be looking to cut education but looking to invest in education."

Kimmel said, "This is still going to be a long protracted situation." She said the recent protests by citizen groups, including Californians Organized to Rescue Education (CORE), which originated in Las Virgenes, have been effective. The group joined other protestors on May 16 at the governor's office in Los Angeles.

Pressure needs to continue, Kimmel said.

"It's all very precariously funded to begin with," she said. "We need people to know the cost is going up. We have a lot of factors that are hitting our budget hard. It's going to be a very difficult year for us."