Gov.’s plan gives schools $2 billion

Marisa O’Neil

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced on Thursday a plan to alleviate

state budget problems by reducing the amount of money due to schools

by about $1.5 billion next year.

The proposed plan, announced by the governor and members of his

Education Coalition at a Sacramento middle school, will not take

money out of school districts’ pockets. Instead, schools would get a

$2 billion increase over last year’s funding, which is roughly half

the amount guaranteed by Proposition 98.

The proposal is a way to keep Schwarzenegger’s promise to increase

per-pupil funding while still saving money for rehabilitating the

state.

“It’s what we anticipated,” said Paul Reed, assistant

superintendent of business services for the Newport-Mesa Unified

School District. “There’s no way the state schools can be funded as

if there weren’t a state crisis. In that regard, it’s not a surprise.

Certainly, all the schools recognize we have to be part of solution.”

Under Proposition 98, which guarantees an increase in school

funding from property taxes each year, kindergarten through

12th-grade schools would have received a roughly $3.5 billion

increase in funds for the 2004-05 school year, Reed said. Instead,

they will receive $2 billion, according to the plan.

That reflects a one-time “rebasing” of Proposition 98 funds that

would be built back into the education budget later. Until more

details in the governor’s proposed budget come out, Reed said, he

can’t say exactly how Newport-Mesa schools will be affected. The

district’s budget is based on a worst-case scenario, he said.

“I’m a real pessimist,” Reed said. “I didn’t expect [the money] to

be there at all. We did our best to do our budget with no increase

from the state.”

Special programs would be most likely to suffer under the proposed

plan, Reed said.

The best part of this proposal, he said, is that it gives

districts some warning. Last year, the state took back $7 million in

the middle of the year.

Members of the PTA, the California School Boards Assn., the

California Assn. of School Business Officials, the Assn. of

California School Administrators, the California County

Superintendents Educational Services Assn. and the California

Teachers Assn. were in on the negotiations of the agreement,

according to a press release from the governor’s office.

The California Federation of Teachers, the labor union for

Newport-Mesa teachers, was not a part of the negotiations.

“[The governor] invited us to be at the unveiling of the proposal,

but since we weren’t part of the negotiations, it didn’t make much

sense for us to be there when we’re not even sure if we’re in support

of it or not,” said Martin Hittelman, senior vice president of the

California Federation of Teachers.

The union has not seen the details of the proposal, he said, but

they are opposed to lowering the Proposition 98 funding requirement

to schools. They want to wait and see “how it’s done and who it

hurts” before making a judgment.

“So far, the bias has not been toward services that help working

people but cutting tax rates for the most wealthy,” Hittelman said.

“When you look at a tax cut, you need to look at where the services

are lost and who loses. Often, the people who lose are the people who

have little to live on. They take services away from them, and the

money goes back to people so they can buy their Hummers.”

For now, the plan is still only a proposal. Once the budget comes

out today, it still has to be passed by the Legislature and signed by

the governor, Reed said.

“As I like to say: ‘It’s not over till the Austrian signs,’” he

said.

* MARISA O’NEIL covers education. She may be reached at (949)

574-4268 or by e-mail at marisa.oneil@latimes.com.