After issuing thousands of preliminary layoff notices, drafting budgets with deep cuts and listening to sky-is-falling scenarios that would shorten the school year by a month, California schools now face a startling possibility: There actually may be the same amount of money as this year.
Now a preeminent school adviser, whom 90 percent of school districts pay to interpret the state budget and education laws, recommends districts add back the revenues they had planned to cut for next year. Ron Bennett, chief executive officer of the Sacramento-based School Services of California, said districts “will be able to bring back teaching, classified and administrative positions
But the rosy advice comes with a caveat: Plan on restoring it, but don’t spend it yet.
“We’re saying do not hire those teachers back until the (state) budget is actually enacted,” Bennett said. That might be next month, or later.
That’s in contrast to the agency’s January advice, which was to prepare two budgets, one cutting $19 per student and another cutting $349 per student.
When state officials started hinting an “all-cuts budget,” would be necessary without extra tax revenues, schools feared cuts of $600 or even more per student.
School Services now recommends districts expect flat funding next year. Districts’ basic revenue from the state averages less than $5,000 per student for a unified school district.
Does this advice, coming after predictions of budgetary catastrophe, risk casting schools as Chicken Littles in the public eye?
New reality
Perhaps, but the reality is that the state budget picture changed. The Legislature acted this spring to impose deep cuts, income-tax revenues unexpectedly improved, and loud protests by teachers and lobbying by schools advocates made clear the political risks of further education cuts.
Now, after talk of budget Armageddon, a simple “more of the same” never sounded so good.
“I am excited by the fact that in the best case we’re flat, and the worst we cut $349,” said Ann Jones, chief business officer of San Jose Unified School District. “A few months ago we were looking at this panic number that there was no way to respond to.”
For San Jose Unified, the county’s largest school district, even cutting $349 per child would mean no layoffs — but it would impose a furlough that shortens the school year by one week.
But in the complicated world of school funding, “flat funding” doesn’t mean the same thing for everyone. For 15 of the county’s 31 districts, those that draw revenues almost entirely from property taxes with minimal state funding, the state still has a hand in their pockets. Santa Clara Unified is one of those districts, and flat funding means it will cut $9 million next year, Assistant Superintendent Jim Luyau said. That’s because the state in March passed a bill ordering those so-called “basic aid” districts to fork over part of their revenues.
Luyau said, “It seems the state budget is still in the middle of nowhere.”
Other districts also aren’t optimistic. “Nobody has the inside track on what reality is going to be,” said Rick Hausman, chief business officer of the Cupertino Union School District.
Hausman will recommend the school board stick with a $349-per-student cut.
Because district voters earlier this month passed a $125-per-parcel tax, the Cupertino district will not have to lay off employees. It rescinded more than 100 preliminary layoff notices sent in March.
How can Bennett be so hopeful when the Legislature remains at an impasse, the governor hasn’t won either a tax extension or an agreement to place the question before voters, and there’s still an estimated $5 billion hole in the budget?
It’s a combination of mathematics and political calculus, Bennett said. First, Brown led the state to solve 80 percent of its $25 billion deficit problem by persuading the Legislature to make $13.4 billion in cuts. The improving economy contributed $6.6 billion in new income-tax revenue.
Now there are three main possibilities. In one, the Legislature approves a one-year extension of two special taxes, places a tax measure on the November ballot and state voters extend the taxes for five years. School budgets won’t be cut.
Or the tax extensions fail. Then the state is short $5 billion, but because of complicated school-funding laws, Bennett said, schools’ share will be only $1.6 billion. Even though Brown has expressed disdain for budgetary tricks, the governor could simply defer that amount in the state’s payments to school districts until the following fiscal year.
Little support
Or, third, the state might try to close the deficit by cutting education. But to cut more than $1.6 billion, the Legislature would have to suspend Proposition 98, the voter-passed funding floor for schools. Bennett contends neither legislative Republicans nor Democrats nor Brown support that idea.
Whether school districts take Bennett’s advice depends on how California’s 58 county offices of education direct their school districts.
Ken Shelton, chief business officer for the Santa Clara County Office of Education, said he hasn’t made up his mind.
Whichever picture materializes, being better than expected shouldn’t be confused with good, budget officials said.
“We’ve made major reductions in program and staffing previously,” Hausman said. “Most districts have been deficit spending. That’s not a windfall; it’s just trying to get the program back to where it was.”
Contact Sharon Noguchi at 408-271-3775.
