News

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

May revise of the state budget

A message from Deputy Superintendent Eric D. Smith

On May 14, 2010, the governor released his much anticipated May revision to the proposed 2010-11 state budget. For K-12 schools, the news is mixed. The good news is that the governor has walked away from his January proposal to require schools to direct $1.2 billion in revenue limit cuts to specific account codes. He has also walked away from his proposal to rescind seniority protection for teachers and to repeal contracting out statutes. He has not walked away, however, from specific proposals to reduce school district revenue limits by a total of $1.5 billion statewide. For the secondary district, this translates to a staggering revenue loss of $2,607,190, or about $283 per ADA for the 2010-11 fiscal year.

The elementary district fares a little better due to its basic aid funding status. Nonetheless, it will be subject to the state’s “fair share” calculation. As a result, the elementary district will lose $659,171 in funding for the 2010-11 fiscal year.

While there are no current year program cuts included in the May revision, there are some surprising proposals for the next fiscal year. Perhaps the biggest shocker is the proposal to completely eliminate state funding for childcare—excluding state preschool and ASES (After School Education and Safety)—for a savings of $1.45 billion. Through elimination of this program, and the corresponding re-benching of the Proposition 98 guarantee, the governor’s proposals result in excess of $2.8 billion in cuts to public education.

Due to the magnitude of the revenue loss, we will be unable to address this deficit between now and June 22, 2010, when our budget will be adopted. Our next steps will be to close our books for the 2009-10 fiscal year and wait for the final adoption of the state budget. Once these events have occurred, we will start the difficult task of addressing the significant loss of revenue in the secondary district.