Nearly 200 teachers and education support personnel from around the state converged on the Capitol on Tuesday, May 22, to urge Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislators to provide full funding for Proposition 98 and to pay moneys owed to existing programs before authorizing any new ones.
The essence of the message was to make sure full funding was appropriated to cover schools’ cost-of-living adjustment and growth and to pay current year deficits, for things such as supplemental instruction, school meals, and community day schools.
The 2007 Presidents’ Lobby Day came a week after Gov. Schwarzenegger released his updated budget proposal, the May Revision that underpins spending discussions between now and when a new spending plan is adopted. (See the following story for details about the revision.)
“You are education experts, and lawmakers want to hear from you,” CTA President Barbara E. Kerr told the CTA local leaders who represented more than 350,000 of their colleagues. The CTA President, Vice-President David Sanchez, Secretary-Treasurer Dean Vogel, and Secretary-Treasurer-Elect Dan Vaughn greeted the CTA members, joined them in budget briefings, and held meetings with elected officials – including the governor – as the CTA members met with their lawmakers.
During the day, the educators also asked lawmakers to support CTA positions on other key issues, one involving retired teachers’ pension protections and a second one surrounding efforts to erase, rewrite, and reauthorize the federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA).
Specifically, teachers urged lawmakers to reject the governor’s proposal to cut back funding for the Supplemental Benefits Maintenance Account (SBMA). That account provides an average of $250-300 a month to long-retired teachers to keep the value of their monthly payments up to at least at 80% of the original value. Thus far, Senators and Assembly Members have rejected the governor’s proposal, but the fight will not be over until a final budget is adopted later this year.
To illustrate the point, CTA members left with lawmakers oversized mock-dollar bills that provided background information about the issue and figures about the average funding SBMA is providing to teachers in each lawmaker’s district.
The CTA member also urged lawmakers to provide the full COLA to the community colleges and to resist further student tuition increases at the California State University.
Under the state budget process, each house reviews the governor’s May Revision and uses it as a basis for its own spending bill. Generally, a joint conference committee – composed of lawmakers from both the state Senate and the Assembly – is charged with reconciling the Senate and Assembly versions into a single bill that goes back to both houses for their approval. The final legislative version goes to the governor, who can make cuts to it before signing it into law.
The state constitution requires lawmakers to send the governor a final spending plan by June 15 and gives the governor until June 30 to sign the fiscal road map into law. The constitution does not penalize lawmakers or the governor for missing their respective deadlines.
Member Lobbyists Updated Lawmakers on ESEA
The member lobbyists also briefed lawmakers on why revising the ESEA is so important to California’s students and schools. State lawmakers are in the process of deliberating on a CTA and Education Coalition resolution that -- if passed by lawmakers -- would go to Congress urging these federal Senators and U.S. Representatives to make the needed changes and reauthorize the federal measure. Billions of dollars in federal funding to schools are hanging on the outcome of Congress’s vote on the ESEA.
• CTA Members:
Continue contacting your Assembly Members and state Senators and urge them to enact a new budget that provides full funding for Proposition 98 and that does not include the governor’s pension purchasing power reductions.
For more information, contact CTA GR Communications Consultant Len Feldman at lfeldman@cta.org.