Bad financial outlook for California schools

[question everything]

Bad financial outlook for California schools

SACRAMENTO – A state report paints a bleak portrait of California's public school finances, finding that as many as 79 districts may not be able to pay their bills in two years.

One-third of the state's 982 public school districts have tapped reserves to make ends meet, with 14 expecting to run out of money in the next two years, according to a report released yesterday by state Controller Steve Westly, a gubernatorial candidate.

An additional 65 districts reported a possibility that their expenses would outpace revenues within that time. Ten of the 79 most financially troubled schools are in Los Angeles County. Although several of San Diego County's 42 public school districts have tapped into reserves to balance their budgets recently, the report found none to be financially troubled.

Associated Press

From http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20050708/news_1n8region.html

[Double T]

1. California eventually will have to give in to higher property taxes.....

or the whole state will go bankrupt. Someone has to pay for all the goodies that are demanded from state and local governments!!!!

[IChing]

10. He needs to understand he borrowed the money from education

Broken promises

One of the first lessons teachers share with young children is the importance of keeping their word. For that reason, it came as a complete shock when the governor of California broke his promise to protect funding for public schools.

Last year, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger borrowed $2 billion from the education budget, with the assurance that he would pay the money back. He vowed that schools would receive their fair share of any additional state revenue and that more harmful cuts would be avoided in future years. Education funding, he emphasized, would only be cut "over my dead body."

Now, even though state revenues are up, the governor is refusing to pay the money back. Even worse, he wants to destroy Proposition 98's minimum funding guarantees for education, which were put in place by a majority of the state's voters. His proposals would allow multiple rounds of midyear cuts across the board.

The net effect is estimated at $25,000 less for every classroom in the state.

This loss compounds the more than $9.8 billion in cuts California schools have suffered over the past four years, which already places the state at 44th in the nation in per-pupil funding; 50th in the number of guidance counselors, librarians and computers per student; 49th in teacher-student ratio; and 50th in library books per student.

http://www.cta.org/CaliforniaEducator/v9i8/Feature_1.htm

[iconoclastic cat]

2. This is exactly what was intended to happen as per NCLB.

[AlCzervik]

3. prop 13 started this ball rolling

[donco6]

4. Colorado's TABOR Amendment as well.

We're having a statewide vote this November to modify some portions of our Prop 13 copy. Already a huge push from out-of-state RW groups to see the initiative fail.

[Barkley]

6. With record level housing prices, CA schools should be tops in $/ pupil

I agree with you that Prop 13 really helped de-fund CA public schools.

I wonder how the housing bubble popping will impact schools?

[cascadiance]

9. Yup, and you know who benefits from prop 13 the most?

Corporations!!

Surprise! Surprise!

Of course they're going to moan that California's taxes them too much, but they're getting the biggest benefit from this law. The big problem they have is trying to have a fluid workforce when it costs a lot more to bring newer employees in (especially once they've laid a lot of people off and are trying to grow again), when the newer employees who try to buy housing bear the brunt of the property taxes. So then the companies have to find ways of not paying the "living wage" to folks around here. Then they like to do the old H1-B Visa or outsourcing thing to keep their costs down!

All a nice equation for "average folk" in California isn't it, unless you happen to be sitting on "old money" or housing paid with "old money".

[nolabels]

5. Bad TOTAL outlook for California schools

[gizmo1979]

7. Is there a state that has a good

financial outlook for education?Not here in WI the repugs cut almost 500 million from the budget for K-12 and I'am not sure about the university system but tuition is going up 7 %.

[leesa]

8. Where's our 9 billion dollars you and the energy barons stole, Arnie?

We could use it in the schools...or was that the point of stealing it?