GILROY
– Just over the last two years, Gilroy Unified School District
has been shortchanged nearly $1 million in state revenue, when
compared to other school districts in California which combine
elementary and secondary education.
And it’s all perfectly legitimate.
GILROY – Just over the last two years, Gilroy Unified School District has been shortchanged nearly $1 million in state revenue, when compared to other school districts in California which combine elementary and secondary education.
And it’s all perfectly legitimate.
GUSD is receiving $54 per student less than other unified school districts in the state, an amount that takes on added significance as the district braces for looming state budget cuts and begins to prioritize spending for next school year.
“We’re losing out on money because the state is using a formula that is over 20 years old,” Superintendent Edwin Diaz said. “There have been attempts to equalize things, but funding is usually too tight to make it happen.”
Making matters more aggravating, Diaz says, is that the state does not pay unified school districts – districts with kindergarten through 12th-graders – the same as school districts with high schoolers only.
For example, if a school district only serves high school students it receives $5,486 per student this year. If a school district only serves kindergartners through eighth-graders, it receives $4,563 per student this year. GUSD receives $4,700 per student this year.
There are 9,630 students in the GUSD. Nearly 7,000 make the district eligible for the $4,563 rate. The remainder are high schoolers, bringing in $5,486 each.
“If we just received the elementary and secondary rates on a per pupil basis, that would generate about $1 million more for us a year,” Diaz said.
High school districts have received more money over the years because it is typically more expensive to fund the extra academic and extracurricular programs needed by older kids.
The funding inequalities have existed since the early 1970s, according to Jon Sonstelie, a senior fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California, an independent think tank which researches major economic, social and political issues.
In the ’70s, school districts were funded solely with property tax revenue. Because that system led to stark inequalities between wealthy and poor areas, the state changed to a system which established revenue limits for school districts, Sonstelie said. Over time, the revenue limits coupled with property tax revenue were supposed to bring all schools to the same overall funding level.
“Where you end up depends on where you started out,” Sonstelie said.
Today, after decades of legal battles and hit-and-miss years where state monies were not plentiful, school districts still do not receive equal funding.
In January, the school board sent a list of 17 recommendations to the governor and state legislators calling for changes in how schools are funded. One of the items called for a complete revision of revenue limits so that each district received the same amount of money (on a per-pupil basis) each year.
“There should be a more equitable way for the state to give money and I think they need to address it,” GUSD Trustee Jaime Rosso said. “But there are so many things on the table right now that have to do with funding changes, I think the state is overwhelmed.”
Thanks to a $34 billion state revenue shortfall, GUSD must trim spending by $3 million over the remainder of this school year and next.
Gov. Gray Davis is proposing to cut the $120-per-student aid the state gives roughly 60 wealthy school districts. But in these budget lean times there is no guarantee the money saved could be used to help poorer districts, or districts like GUSD which fall in between.
“Playing Robin Hood won’t cure the ill health of all the low wealth districts because there aren’t enough wealthy districts,” Sonstelie said. “Wealthy districts make up about 3 percent of the state’s enrollment.”
Regarding the disparity between how much high school districts and unifierd districts get paid, Sonstelie says it would be “perfectly logical” to fund unified school districts with a set rate for elementary students and high school students. But to Sonstelie, the state doesn’t seem poised to go that route.
“They could certainly change the way they do this, but we’re not looking at huge disparities (between school districts) anymore,” Sonstelie said.
Since each district spends money differently, there still can be huge disparities as far as Diaz is concerned.
“That’s not taking into account how much more expensive it is to educate elementary kids, now that accountability and standardized testing are big issues,” Diaz says.
GUSD is in the midst of intensive academic program reform. The effort led to the hiring of many specialists across the district charged with improving standardized test scores and closing the gap between the district’s lowest and highest performers on those exams.
The district doesn’t have a firm dollar amount on how costly the increased training is.
