Problems Cited in Proposed State Education Budget

Hannah Heineman
Mirror staff writer
  
   Reacting to the proposed new state budget, the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District (SMMUSD) Superintendent John Deasy issued a memorandum stating that the District will “face a reduction in work force and again a cut back in services, to experience a balanced budget. The degree and magnitude of these events will be seriously affected by the outcome of the March election,” in which voters will be asked to approve a $15 billion bond.
   Deasy went on to say, “The members of the State Legislature will make modifications to the Governor’s proposal…(and) the Governor’s proposal will also be modified by the administration during the May revision to the budget. In addition, we also have some uncertainty in our local revenue picture.”
   Neither the City of Santa nor the City of Malibu has decided how much money they will allocate to the School District in the new fiscal year.
   “In his budget, the Governor claims in his budget, that on a per ADA basis, K-12 education will increase by over $200 per child,” Deasy continued. “Upon careful examination of the budget, the total 2004-2005 Proposition 98 support for education will increase by 1.1% as adjusted for changes in local revenues and ADA growth. The true level of K-12 Proposition 98 per-pupil funding between what we were cut this year and what is proposed next year represents an ACTUAL increase of $5 per ADA. This is the figure upon which we will base our budget planning process.”
   According to Deasy, “The single most important element of the education proposal is the suspension of the Proposition 98 guarantee. The Education Coalition reached an agreement with the Governor prior to the publication of this budget proposal to suspend Proposition 98 and reduce the guarantee in the budget year by $2 billion.
   The $2 billion reduction is an absolute number. In other words, the Governor promised not to increase or decrease this amount during budget deliberations and there will be no new proposals to fund non-Proposition 98 programs with Proposition 98 funds.” The reduction of Proposition 98 “is for one year only. It is promised that the cut will be paid back in the future.
   “If revenues increase at the May Revise and there are additional Proposition 98 funds available for 2004-2005, these funds will be allocated to education as opposed to increasing the $2 billion reduction. However, if there are insufficient funds available to fund all of the above commitments, the reductions will come from the education expenditure side of the budget. It this happens, the $2 billion reduction remains in place.”
   Deasy also observed that the Governor’s budget proposal “calls for the elimination of 22 current categorical education programs and the shifting of the money for these to the general fund revenue limit for a school district. The intent is to provide districts greater flexibility in the local use of funds.”
   Class Size Reduction and Special Education are not included in the proposal but such programs as home-to-school transportation and school improvement are.
   Deasy found many examples of “unintended consequences” in the proposed budget. One such consequence would be that School Districts’ incentives “to cut back or eliminate school transportation will be great and increasing, because state aid for transportation will be a permanent part of the revenue limit. Current encroachment and inequities in transportation spending will become permanent and not be addressed in any future budgets.”
   According to Deasy, the governor is “touting” an increase for Standards-Based Instructional Materials. However, the “the new funding for materials and books, which used to be allocated on enrollment, will now be funded on ADA. Therefore, this is no assurance there will be enough money for all students to obtain a standards-based instructional text or new instructional material. A classic case of where more is less.”
   In addition, there is no assurance that staff development funds will be used for specific training in standards-based instruction, the District will get “substantially less money” for such programs as risk intervention, conflict resolution and English Leaner Assistance and millions will be cut from education services for child-care programs among other things.
   Deasy’s memo concludes by noting the draconian cuts proposed by the Governor “to county and state social and youth services will have an impact on our district.” Many services that students have received at county facilities will now have to be provided by local schools, or abandoned. Deasy says, “We are not prepared, funded, nor equipped to provide these crucial services.”
   He predicts that the District “will be approximately $3.5 million short of maintaining all current programs and services for the 2004-2005 school year. This does not include any reduction of programs proposed by the Governor in his budget.”
   The Governor’s proposal and the continuing precarious state of School District funding has prompted some members of the Santa Monica City Council and the Committee for Excellent Public Schools to propose their own solutions for the District’s financial woes.
   At the December 16 City Council meeting, Council members directed City staff to explore five strategies for providing “predictable” additional funding to the SMMUSD. The newest strategy, proposed by Council members Michael Feinstein and Herb Katz, would entail placing a ballot measure on the 2004 ballot that would call for the City’s purchase and/or lease of part or all District land and buildings as well as its purchase of non-District property at 2943 Exposition Boulevard in order to meet community education, open space, housing and parking needs. Mello-Roos bonds would finance the purchase and/or lease of the properties.
   Feinstein told the Mirror that “instead of pitting School District and City priorities one against the other in a time that revenue flows are uncertain, this proposal would create a new revenue stream that promotes better economics for both schools and the City regardless of what the state does.”
   To Feinstein, the ballot measure proposed by the Community for Excellent Public Schools (CEPS) that would amend the Santa Monica City Charter to require the City to allocate a specific sum ($6 million initially) annually to the School District is a response to what CEPS perceives as the “unresponsiveness of the Council to School District needs. In reality, the Santa Monica City Council has been more responsive than any other Council in California to the needs of the District. We give more than any other City, except Beverly Hills but they don’t have the social services we do.”
   He added that if it were approved, the CEPS’s proposal would “gut millions of dollars from the City budget every year without the community looking at all its priorities in a comprehensive manner. That’s just bad government. This would replicate the same bad budget practices that placed the state in a perilous position and undermine the very financial practices that have put the City in a position to help in the first place.”
   In an interview with the Mirror, the President of the Santa Monica-Malibu Classroom Teachers Association (SMMCTA) Harry Keiley stated that the “teachers are grateful to the City Council for their continued support of the Public Schools. The education of our children is not the sole responsibility of the City, the federal government or the state. It is all of our responsibility, and a predictable and reliable funding source for our schools is desperately needed and ultimately an investment in our school is an investment in our community’s future.”
   Turning to Schwarzenegger’s budget, Keiley pointed out the teachers are very pleased that the “budget will not result in mid year cuts. In light of the fiscal crisis this is the best we can ask for and we’ll work with the Governor to help the legislature pass this budget.”
   Ralph Mechur, a CEPS committee member, told the Mirror that his committee filed the necessary documents so their measure would be eligible to go on the November ballot, adding that CEPS believes the “Council has said education is a high priority, but it hasn’t yet considered it with the same consistency as the other priorities. There is also a strong feeling in the community that education should share in the wealth of the City” and that The Feinstein/Katz proposal “asks us to tax ourselves more.”
   The collection of signatures in support of the ballot measure will begin in February according to CEPS co-chair Louise Jaffee. 13,000 signatures are needed.
   The complete text of Deasy’s memorandum is posted on the School District website.