New Senate GOP Plan Surfaces
CTA and the Education Coalition are continuing their statewide mobilization to gain legislative support for Gov. Davis' revised budget. The ongoing outreach is taking shape as the state moves into its third week of the new fiscal year without a spending plan in place.
In news conferences around the state, CTA and Coalition representatives have been stressing that the Governor's proposed state budget package is the only plan that prevents further cuts from education and balances the state budget. The Governor's proposal provides a small, temporary, half-cent sales tax increase to close the state's $38 billion deficit responsibly and keep deeper cuts away from schools and students.
On July 10, the Governor's Secretary of Education, Kerry Mazzoni, and Deputy Chief of Staff, Nancy McFadden, joined CTA Board Member Paula Caplinger and other Education Coalition representatives, who gathered at Bret Harte Elementary School in Sacramento to call for quick approval of the Governor's spending plan.
Also participating in the news conference were Masumi Jackson, parent of twins scheduled to attend kindergarten at Caroline Wenzel Elementary; Tiia Bullen of the California State PTA; Jorge Ayala of the California County Superintendents Educational Services Association; Scott Plotkin of the California School Boards Association; Joan Polster of the Association of California School Administrators; Clyde Rivers of the California School Employees Association; and Superintendent Dave Gordon of the Elk Grove Unified School District.
Similar events took place Friday, July 11, in other major media centers around the state. Spearheading the CTA contingent at these events were CTA Board Members David Hernandez in San Francisco, Dianne Jones in San Diego, Cynthia Peña in Monterey, and Lloyd Porter in Orange County.
The media events followed an intensive paid media campaign that invested $1 million in urging lawmakers to protect school funding and support the Governor's revised proposal.
At these events, Coalition representatives stressed that schools have already suffered more than $4.1 billion in reductions, and the Governor's balanced plan of cuts and temporary tax increases would keep any reductions as far from the classroom as possible.
Meanwhile, State Treasurer Phil Angelides continued his own "statewide drive to save school spending from billions of dollars in Republican-proposed education cuts." At a news conference on July 11 in Los Angeles, he and a coalition of groups urged "GOP lawmakers to end the budget stalemate." Angelides was joined at the news conference by CTA Board Member Mignon Jackson, Los Angeles Unified School Board member Marguerite Poindexter LaMotte; Principal Veronique Wills of the James A. Foshay Learning Center; James E. Castillo, LA Urban League; the Rev. Norman Johnson of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference; and the Rev. Leonard Jackson, First A.M.E. Church.
Events Follow Assembly GOP Plan Defeat, Precede Senate Republican Proposal Vote
The series of Coalition news conferences began just days after the Assembly handily defeated an Assembly Republican spending proposal that would have cut another $1.5 billion from education and forced more than 110,000 children out of kindergarten.
It would also have marked still further reductions in higher education funding.
The Assembly Republican spending plan would have rejected both the Governor's temporary half-cent sales tax increase and the automatic pulling of a trigger that restores the state's Vehicle License Fee (VLF) to its 1998 level.
While the proposal was overwhelmingly defeated, CTA representatives are keeping a wary eye on elements of the plan to help guard against the possibility that they will be included in any other budget proposal.
CTA President Barbara E. Kerr, a kindergarten and first grade teacher from Riverside, called the Assembly GOP budget plan an irresponsible attack on some of our state's youngest learners. "This proposal sank to a new low by targeting some of our most vulnerable students in one of their most important school years," said Kerr. "I'd invite any legislator who supports a plan like this to come tell these children and their families why they can't go to school."
Five Republicans joined all Assembly Democrats in refusing to vote for the CTA-opposed spending plan. They were Lynn Daucher (R-Brea), Bonnie Garcia (R-Cathedral City), Shirley Horton (R-Chula Vista), Abel Maldonado (R- Santa Maria), and Keith Richman (R-Northridge).
As E-PAL went to press, the Senate was expected to take up shortly a new Senate Republican proposal that would pare another $2.7 billion from state spending. While details were sketchy, the proposal also reportedly rejects the Governor's temporary sales tax increase, something CTA analysts view as vital to filling the $38.2 budget gap without making more cuts to classroom funding.
CTA Members:
Keep urging your Assembly Member and Senator to approve the Governor's revised spending plan. Keep asking them to vote against any proposal that carry further cuts to schools.