With the help of a statewide mobilization of its members, CTA has won a major victory in Sacramento that will preserve schools' current year cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) and protect public education from other across-the-board funding cuts for the remainder of the fiscal year.
CTA was also able to block teacher furloughs, class size increases and reductions to the base revenue limit that had been proposed earlier this year. CTA's goal has been to keep all cuts as far away from the classroom as possible.
Struggling to close a $26 billion state budget gap that gets worse by the day, the governor originally targeted schools for cuts of $2.7 billion in the current year. Instead, SBX1 18, which was signed into law March 18, pares nearly $3.5 billion from state spending in 2002-03, some $2.4 billion of it from public education. Approximately $261.5 million of it was cut from higher education budgets.
Most of the current-year reductions - $2 billion - will not impact local school budgets at all. In fact, more than $1.1 billion in cuts take the form of deferrals of 2002-03 Proposition 98 funds until the 2003-04 fiscal year. Districts can easily use their reserves to handle any temporary cash flow problems caused by the deferrals. CTA is advising local chapters to challenge any district trying to portray the deferrals as a local budget cut.
CTA's mobilization helped block a proposed 3.66 percent across-the-board reduction in revenue limits and categorical programs, a proposed 7.46 percent cut in categorical program funding, and proposed cuts in adult education and Regional Occupational Centers.
"We asked CTA members in every district in California to communicate with the governor and lawmakers," says CTA President Wayne Johnson. "These powerful communications - from educators who could talk about how cuts hurt our students - helped make the difference."
Schools are not out of the woods yet, though. "We'll need to keep the pressure on to protect schools from other cuts proposed for the 2003-04 school year."
In anticipation of more than $1.5 billion in cuts to next year's education budget, Johnson told CTA State Council delegates that districts around the state are "handing out reduction-in-force (RIF) notices like handbills to a rave party.
"These districts are using psychological warfare with their teachers."
The RIFs, which are premature at best, are "meant to frighten, intimidate and divide teachers. This is public intimidation to force concessions and takebacks at the bargaining table."
He said CTA is working hard to keep the cuts as far from the classroom as possible while administrators and their paid consultants are trying to make all of the cuts in the classroom.
One district - Los Angeles Unified - didn't send out any notices because "they know that when the dust settles, they are going to need more teachers than they can find."
He said teachers feeling threatened by the situation need only remember that California is short this year by 50,000 fully credentialed teachers and California public schools will be growing by 100,000 students per year for the next several years.
"Don't let these administrative tyrants intimidate you. They need you more than you need them, and they are lucky to have you!"
