Schwarzenegger's bitter budget

[Hannah Bell]

John Green, a teacher in California, looks at the facts about Arnold Schwarzenegger's new budget proposal--and explains how easy it would be to protect our schools:


The governor's proposals are a bit baffling, but here's an outline.

1. Fully "fund" a negative cost-of-living-adjustment (COLA) at -0.38 percent.

The negative COLA proposal will amount to about $250 per student, which is equal to the so-called "one-time" cut of $252.83 per pupil that school districts endured last year. In other words, this cut completely throws out all of last year's local budget scenarios and predictions.

2. Cut "school district central administration" by $1.2 billion.

This "chop from the top" proposal doesn't specify cutting outrageous superintendent salaries--only a reduction in funds for central offices. Will low-level administrators simply be bumped into school sites and dislocate younger teachers? What about districts that initiated some sort of central office cuts last year already?

3. $300 million reduction by eliminating barriers to "contracting out."

In other words, the governor wants to make it easier for school districts to bypass unionized employees (and their pesky collective-bargaining agreements) by contracting for services from outside providers. Most likely, this will mean taking on SEIU and CSEA, who represent classified employees such as custodians and secretaries.

4. Accounting tricks to lower future Prop 98 minimum funding guarantees.

California's voter-approved Proposition 98 guarantees that a minimum of 40 percent of the state's general fund be spent on K-14 education. Cold comfort while the general fund shrinks each year, but Gov. Schwarzenegger still proposes to eliminate the state's gas tax in favor of a "fee," causing gasoline sales revenue to bypass the general fund altogether.

5. Additional "flexibilities" inspired by the Obama administration's Race to the Top funds.

The governor's budget proposes to eliminate seniority in layoffs, transfers and rehires; eliminate laid-off teachers' first priority for substitute assignments; and reduce the school year by up to five days. Simply put, seniority rights protect older employees from being targeted due to union activity or earning higher pay.


Why eliminate school days when we could eliminate Proposition 13? Why pull funding from school districts when we should pull out of Afghanistan? Why raise a generation of children with a broken education system when we could just raise taxes on the wealthy?

This is obviously a tall order, so here's a place to start: The March 4 statewide day of action to defend public education. Initiated by student activists, and now supported by both the California Federation of Teachers and California Teachers Association, this could become the biggest day of resistance we've seen so far.

http://socialistworker.org/2010/02/01/schwarzeneggers-bitter-budget

[lazarus]

1. thanks for this, HB

Prop 13 and safe district gerrymandering have hosed this state.