News Briefs

Calif. ‘compromise’ budget guts ed funding

Mar 5, 2009 4:34 PM

If California is the Golden State, it was fool’s gold that lawmakers spun as they cut education and public service funds to fill the state’s yawning $41 billion budget gap in the current year’s budget.

State spending was slashed by $14.8 billion, including for schools, public transit and health care. Taxes were increased by $12.5 billion, meaning an average family of four with an annual income of $75,000 would pay about $963 more a year in taxes, according to one legislative analysis.

Included, too, is $1 billion in tax breaks for businesses, one of a number of sweeteners offered to six state Republican legislators to win the two-thirds majority required for budget bills.

Administration officials said the budget deal may avert some of the 10,000 layoffs the governor had already begun to implement, though the administration is not rescinding already-issued pink slips.

In education, some $5 billion in lottery proceeds earmarked for schools would be used instead to reduce the deficit, as would an added $3 billion next year. Teachers predict class sizes will grow; there will be fewer librarians, school nurses and counselors; school lunch programs will run out of money; and instructional materials and teacher development will be scarce. Worse, the effects will take place in the middle of the school year.

Also, state university tuition will increase by 9 percent.

A provision giving “flexibility” to school district and college administrations means moving funds out of categorical programs and into district general funds. California Federation of Teachers President Marty Hittleman predicted such flexibility will be “a tool for administrators to eliminate class-size reduction, adult education, occupa- ­tional skills, early childhood education, professional development, part-time parity pay and other necessary programs,” and programs directed at “disadvantaged and working class students.”