FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
LOS ANGELES – To protect the state and its public schools from potentially devastating cuts, the top governing body of the 335,000-member California Teachers Association voted today to endorse Propositions 57 and 58 on the March ballot.
Prop. 57, the Economic Recovery Bond Act, provides for a one-time $15 billion bond to help pay off the state's accumulated general fund deficit. Prop. 58, the California Balanced Budget Act, requires enacting a balanced state budget every year, ensures that the Legislature never spends more money than it has, and prohibits bond financing of any future deficits. Both propositions must pass for either to become law.
"If this recovery package does not pass in March, the prospect of brutal cuts to education, health care and local police and firefighting is real and too painful to imagine," said CTA President Barbara E. Kerr. "These initiatives and Proposition 55, the statewide school bond, must pass to put California back on the road to recovery and give our students the schools they deserve."
Today's vote was taken by the CTA State Council of Education, comprised of nearly 800 democratically elected teacher representatives from across the state, at the Council's regular quarterly meeting in Los Angeles. Teachers are already part of broad coalitions that are supporting the other two statewide measures on the March ballot: Proposition 55, the $12.3 billion school bond, and Prop. 56, which reduces from two-thirds to 55 percent the vote required by the Legislature to pass the state budget.