This page was last updated on October 30, 2008.
Santa Barbara Unified School District is part of the Santa Barbara County Education Office.
Follow @sbsdk12
News
Thursday, October 30, 2008
State Budget Situation Deteriorating; Governor calls for Mid-Year Cuts; Impact on our District Still Unknown
Message from Deputy Superintendent Eric D. Smith, Santa Barbara School Districts
Members of the Education Coalition met with Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on Tuesday morning to discuss the governor’s plan to convene the legislature to address the budget crisis. The governor said that while the early estimates placed the budget shortfall at $3 billion, the real shortfall is between $5 billion to $8 billion or more, perhaps even high as $10 billion.
The governor also raised the specter of mid-year cuts to public education in the amount of $2 billion to $4 billion. By all accounts, this appears to be a long-term problem for the state, and potentially our district. We are entering a long dark tunnel and we have no idea of when we will emerge from the other end. We will know more when the governor’s budget proposal is presented in mid-January.