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| CTA president David A. Sanchez speaks on Day of the Teacher at a Bay Area stop on the “Cuts Hurt” bus tour about the May budget revise. |
As school fiscal experts pored over Gov. Schwarzenegger’s budget revision on May 14, they found that while the plan does not suspend Proposition 98, it does reduce public education funding by more than $4 billion. Because the updated budget plan still relies on a cuts-only approach, it fails to meet public education’s fiscal needs. The governor’s budget proposes an allocation for schools that could very well turn layoff notices into realities for 20,000 educators across the state.
The May Revision continues to cut the Class Size Reduction program, and the result would be more students crammed into California’s already overcrowded classrooms. The plan also cuts funding for programs that target low-income students and for schools most in need of help. The proposal would keep California 46th nationally in per-pupil funding and dead last in teachers, counselors and librarians per student.
The revised proposal also does not provide a cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) on any program, meaning that inflation will reduce schools’ ability to attract and keep highly qualified teachers and to purchase gasoline, energy, and other staples.
CTA and its coalition partners — organizations representing millions of parents, students, teachers and other educators, school employees, administrators, and school boards — are working hard in the Capitol and around the state to convince lawmakers to reject the governor’s more than $4 billion in school cuts.
Under state law, legislators have until June 15 to send the governor their final budget version. The governor has until June 30 to sign the measure into law. While the state constitution does not penalize either the Legislature or the governor for missing those deadlines, the state will lose its ability to write checks as the new fiscal year progresses without a spending plan in place. The budget proposal will also hit hard the children in families least able to cope with state reductions in health care and other vital services provided to the state’s neediest residents.
“We had hoped the governor had gotten the message that Californians don’t want to see their schools cut, their students hurt, their class sizes increased, and their school employees laid off,” said CTA President David A. Sanchez. “We need to keep our voices raised until he hears us all more clearly.”
CTA and its Education Coalition allies — representing more than 6 million students and millions of parents, instructional employees, and working women and men — will continue mobilizing members and the public to defeat the reconfigured but still devastating cuts the governor continues to propose.
Len Feldman
