Posted on 12/20/2007 9:28:31 PM PST by NormsRevenge
SACRAMENTO -- California schools could face painful mid-year spending cuts of a $1 billion or more as a weakening economy lowers tax revenue forecasts, reducing the Proposition 98 school-funding guarantee.
Non-partisan Legislative Analyst Liz Hill said last month that school funding in the current year was about $400 million above the Proposition 98 guarantee.
She suggested that lawmakers look at cutting the "over-appropriation" as one way to begin closing a huge budget shortfall now reportedly estimated by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to be about $14 billion over the next 18 months.
Hill's estimate was made when the shortfall was believed to be $10 billion. Although no details have been released, Schwarzenegger's $14 billion shortfall is presumed to be based in large part on lower revenue forecasts.
"I heard this morning that it could be $1.4 billion ... It's getting worse by the day," Scott Plotkin, executive director of the California School Boards Association, said of rumors of a ballooning Proposition 98 over-appropriation.
"I have been through two of these mid-year reductions, and it's a nightmare," he said.
Plotkin said there is a possibility that a prompt cut of $400 million might be possible before some school districts have received the funds or spent it on teachers and other ongoing expenses.
"The bigger this number gets the more we are talking about definitely having impact on schools, and we are halfway through the school year," he said.
In the state budget for the fiscal year that began in July, a $102 billion general fund allocates $42 billion for kindergarten through high school. Proposition 98, approved by voters in 1988, guarantees schools roughly 40 percent of the general fund.
Through a complicated formula, Proposition 98 is intended to make sure that school funding keeps pace with enrollment growth and inflation. A suspension of Proposition 98 requires a two-thirds vote of the Legislature.
School groups led by the powerful California Teachers Association have formed a coalition that has zealously protected Proposition 98. The Education Coalition also contends that per-pupil funding in California is below the national average.
"I can tell you that until everybody puts all of their cards on the table, we are not agreeing to anything," Plotkin said of the current budget situation.
CA: School nightmare looms
Some might say we have been watching a nightmare for quite a few years in many California schools, no matter how much money we pump into them.
I wonder where they would be, fiscally, without the children of illegals.
“Weakening economy” my Aunt Fanny! It’s the millions upon millions of illegal alien children that they’re forced to educate with no tax base to support it!
Zimbabwefornia BUMP!
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
Best guess: From 1885 to 1950 Hispanic surnames were a relatively stable 15% of California's population. Today, over 50% of the births and almost 40% of California's K-12 school population have Hispanic surnames. An educated guess would be that about 1/3 of school age children in California can trace their heritage to illegal immigration. Based on today's education budget, that equates to a savings of about $20B (that's Billion with a B) annually.
In light of these numbers, the $1B reduction proposed hardly seems fair.
Oh the humanity. They might even run out of condoms to put on cucumbers. What then?
California’s Legislative Analyst’s Office
http://www.lao.ca.gov/laoapp/
—
California’s Fiscal Outlook: Proposition 98 Briefing
November 15, 2007
PDF Summary
http://www.lao.ca.gov/laoapp/PubDetails.aspx?id=1683
let California be the first to cut out band, sports, arts, music, since that is what will have to happen to pay all the govt workers with their hands out...
thanks to the NEA..
let California be the first to cut out band, sports, arts, music, since that is what will have to happen to pay all the govt workers with their hands out...
thanks to the NEA..
“School Nightmare Looms in CA”
The real school nigthmare out there is the pro-homosexual push that is going to start in earnest thanks to the Homonator signing that stupid bill.
I think the libs are going to see their nightmare realized when a significant percentage of Christians finally say enough to the gubmint indoctrination centers and their federal funds start drying up.
Best thing that could help now is one initiative, or numerous initiatives, to roll back the spending initiatives passed by the voters the past couple decades. Start with Schwarzenegger’s After-school Program passed by voters in 2002.
Worst thing that could happen is the state declaring bankruptcy. At that point either a precedent would be established with the federal government bailing out the state with borrowed money from China, or bankruptcy proceeding would take place with one judge deciding the fate of the state.
We need to repeal all the previously approved spending initiatives, get back on sound financial ground, put guns to the heads of the legislators with firm instructions to not mess with the renewed financial soundness, and let real prosperity return to the state.
If they didn’t push through multi-billion dollar spending hikes every single year, there wouldn’t be a budget crisis to begin with.
Just 9 years ago, California was spending $5,750 per K-12 student. This year, they’re spending $8600.
California is, in many ways, an example of “how not to do it”.
I love how they talk about school monies instead of the tax money spent on sex changes for the mentally ill and prisoners and also the tax dollars paying for the costly hormones that keep them in the right hormone category for their new gender.
All they have to do is end the cross town busing and they would be fine..or expell all the illegals and they would have the best financed school system in the world.
California certainly has done well with the Compassionate Arnold...IMO, this is what the reat of the country will look like with a D-rat or a Guili/McCain/Hucka-R in the WH.
How about the payouts to teacher-molested kindergarteners—among other school children—I've been reading about at FR. Some settlements have been described as "hefty".
Those are becoming the equivalent of payouts by the RC church, but are paid for by even deeper pockets—from taxpayers. Monies intended "for education".
BTW, RobinOfKingston: Clinton is presently touring Wolfeboro, NH, summer home of Mitt Romney.
He will be passing the real estate signs of an agent named "Robin Kingston"!
Nah. They will lay off the history, math, and science teachers first. Priorities.
And I pay only $6,500/year (probably closer to $7,000/year counting fundraisers) for my daughter to attend a private school. Her second grade class took the national standardized testing (Iowa Test or something like that) and we saw the results for the entire class... at the end of second grade, the AVERAGE for the entire class was 4.5, meaning they scored as if they were 5 months into the 4th Grade. Almost two full grade levels above the national average.
This is about half of the Desert Sands Unified Skoo District headquarters building....fondly known to some of us locals as "Taj Mahal"....not a portable trailer on the site, unlike the various campuses around the area; those look like post-Katrina camps.
Kind of like hiring a caterer to do your wedding, he serves hotdogs and soda, and you concluding you just didn't give him enough money, and NOT concluding he spent the bare minimum on your meal, keeping the rest.
Isn't it painfully obvious the gazillions are diverted away from where it's needed once it's taken from the taxpayers? Isn't it obvious???
“I wonder where they would be, fiscally, without the children of illegals.”
They would still be in the same mess even without illegals. These teachers and their unions and school administrators have a long list of wants that have nothing to do with the child’s education, i.e. health programs, food programs, special ed classes. The list goes on. Just last week a study was released of how our students stack up against students from 30 other countries. We were 21 overall and 25th on math. The study did say our students do feel good about themselves.
You nailed it Cherrt,you went right to the meat of the problem!!!!
My guess is that the schools have made contractual obligations which anticipate incomes at least five years ahead. So every time they don’t get an increase that exceeds the inflation rate by x%, they have to cut operating costs. So “necessary” things such a fixing the plumbing etc don’t get done so that the assistant superintendent’s secretary’s assistant will get her salary, or the asst Superintendent won’t get hs driving allowance(His one million dollar house is a hundred miles from his office). No railroad ever had as much featherbedding as a school district, where so much income was eaten up by idle hands and high perks.
sadly the law of ‘economy of scales’ does not apply to state gubamint, especially in California..
gubamint services is not a commodity altho some treat it as such or are allowed to come election time.
in the end, the voters decide, unfortunately most don’t have a clue or seem to care when it comes to fiscal responsibility much less accountability.
Exactly do them both!
The schools through out America are healthcare, sexeducation and mental health facilities, NOT EDUCATION FACILITIES. Liberal policies for the past 40 years that pump millions into systems that are a deep black hole of corruption and waste. Thank god Hillary has a plan! Ya know she is the candidate for change, just like all the other puppet heads. The meaning of change is we will be redistributing your income to subsidize a failed system.
Such pure crap. Lots of under-education, fluff programs and limiting growth being counted as a huge cut. Perhaps requiring documentation to attend school, to get medi-Cal or to other services would end the problem and leave Calefornia with a surplus.
Kicking the illegals out of the classroom would reduce the "average daily attendance" numbers. That's how the school gets paid. That would reduce the number of teachers and classrooms needed. The teacher's union wouldn't stand for anything that would reduce the number of jobs available. The only thing acceptable to the schools is another tax increase.
The quality hasn't improved with that additional spending. There is also the matter of skyrocketing property values and commensurate increases in property tax revenues. That bubble is going down the tubes now, but government never manages to deal with the real world. Government thinks it is entitled to ever increasing budgets.
A few FReepers could teach more to those kids with just PAPER and PENCILS than BILLIONS of SOCIALIST-ENGINEERING dollars
ditto.
we’re spending a lot of money on kids of all races
that don’t want to be in school.
to them it’s a prison.
thank you, liberal-union teachers.
I'm sure some of them will be looking to move out of California.
Or, option 3, the state's executive branch would simply not be able to spend money that did not exist, without regard for the legislature's notions of "mandates" and "entitlements". If there's no money, the welfare checks don't come. Period.
$14 bill deficit, $10 bill in services to illegals.
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