Central Coast News KION/KCBAEducation leaders: State cuts dismantling system piece by piece

Education leaders: State cuts dismantling system piece by piece

SALINAS, Calif. -- School districts across the Central Coast are sounding the alarm about the elimination of state funding for transportation, saying it will be even harder to shield students from directly feeling the impact of unrelenting state cuts.

"For the first time in our careers, there is an element of fear," said Brett McFadden, chief business officer for the Pajaro Valley Unified School District, the largest district in Santa Cruz County.  "This fiscal crisis has now gone on six years and we're getting to the point now where we don't have many options left that don't have direct impacts on kids."

When the state recently failed to meet revenue expectations by more than $2 billion, Governor Jerry Brown pulled the trigger on midyear cuts built into the budget, which included slashing school transportation statewide by $248 million.  The governor's budget for next fiscal year assumes that cut won't be restored and it does not allocate any money for home to school transportation, eliminating all specific funding for school buses.

"The worst part is just the impacts on the students and on their families and on our entire education system," said Dr. Nancy Kotowski, superintendent of schools for Monterey County, which has been cut by a total of $399 million in the last five years.  "It's a dismantling of our education system piece by piece as we're getting down now to removing the means by which our children can even get to school."

There is a solution moving its way through the Legislature that would counteract the trigger cuts this year.  Senate Bill 81 proposes changing the $248 million transportation cut into a general cut of roughly $42 per student.

Kotowski said Monterey County would gain $1.1 million as a whole in transportation funding if SB 81 passes, but given the formula, eight districts, including Salinas City Elementary School District, Alisal Union School District and Greenfield Union School District, would end up with less money overall.  Tuesday, Senate Bill 81 passed the Assembly Budget Committee with bipartisan support.

The legislation does not address the elimination of transportation funding for next fiscal year.  Governor Brown said his budget increases education funding overall by $4.4 billion, but it relies on the voters approving an initiative that hikes the sales tax by a half-cent and increases the income tax on "millionaires and high income earners."

H.D. Palmer, deputy director of external affairs for the California Department of Finance, said the governor is making the case that the state needs to reinvest in education.  "The economy and revenues have taken a toll on funding for education and the governor wants to renew our investment in education," Palmer said. 

But McFadden said the governor is playing a dangerous game.  "We understand the state is in fiscal trouble, but what the governor is doing is he is placing education in the biggest high-stakes gamble in the modern history of public education and there's not much to win," he said.  "Even if it works, we don't get extra money."

McFadden said the governor's budget relies on "show games," including the payment of one-time deferrals and movement of prior-year state bonds into the Proposition 98 school funding formula, which he said won't translate to a funding increase in the long-run. 

If the governor's tax initiative fails to pass, education will be cut once again.  Palmer said there would be another round of trigger reductions of $4.8 billion to K-12 schools and community colleges in January.

Dr. Kotowski said the continual state cuts represent the eroding of educational opportunities for California school children.  "Everything is being impacted," she said.  "It is incumbent upon us, it's a moral imperative and it's the basis of our democracy, that we provide a free and adequate education for our children."