Expect a No Frills ‘Maintenance’ School Budget, Payzant Tells Board

The 115,000 students in the San Diego Unified School District will not suffer major cuts in their education next year under state funding proposed by Gov. George Deukmejian, but neither will they gain back any programs lost as a result of tight money this year, district officials told the school board Tuesday.

The governor has proposed inflation adjustments for all general education programs that the state requires, as well as additional funds to cover growth in numbers of students. However, the budget Deukmejian sent to the state legislature contains no cost-of-living increases for most discretionary programs, including those such as bilingual education.

‘Maintenance Budget’

“This is a maintenance budget,” Supt. Tom Payzant told the board. “While it certainly is an improvement over the one released one year ago this month, you’ll see that it allows us (only) to maintain that which we are now doing . . . it does not provide substantial amounts of new money for program expansion beyond what we are required (under state law) to do.”

The district last year was forced to cut $10.6 million from its tentative budget because Duekmejian’s proposals failed to keep up with the cost of living. Numerous programs were dropped or trimmed back, bringing loud protests from teachers and parents.

Board member Kay Davis said that the flourish with which Deukmejian this month announced increased funding for schools in his new budget led her to believe there would be a lot of new money for salaries, for new facilities and for textbooks.

“It will not force us to cut, assuming we keep the status quo,” Davis said. “But if we want to do something new in staff development or in (tougher curriculum standards) under the common core (proposal), then we are going to have to cut somewhere else.

“What people don’t understand in seeing (the added dollars proposed) is that just to stay in the same place costs money.”

Davis noted that Deukmejian has asked for a 6% increase in funding for the gifted and talented education program, a program which Davis has long supported at the local level. She attributed the proposal to the strong lobbying done by parents of gifted children after the governor proposed no funding last year.

“But then you see (no increase) for bilingual when there is such a need for our state to educate (Hispanics and others) in English and Spanish, especially when (children from those) groups are the fastest growing segment in our state,” Davis said. “To have no consideration of (that fact) is a real slap in the face.”

Preschool Centers

The governor did propose additional funds for preschool centers across the state, which would include 32 in the San Diego district. In part, the proposal recognizes the importance that researchers now place on preschool programs in preparing children, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds, to compete equally in later grades.

Board president Dorothy Smith said that while the situation looks grim today, she remains optimistic that state legislators can be persuaded to add to the budget.

“I don’t want to jump to early conclusions about what we can and cannot do,” Smith said.

Don Crawford, president of the San Diego Teachers Assn., said the early analysis shows that difficult negotiations will continue over salary increases. Teachers remain without a contract under the present budget, in part because they want more than the 2.5% set aside for increases in September. Mediation with a state labor negotiator continues today between association and district officials.