District officials are unclear of how Proposition 1B, aimed to
secure state paybacks to schools starting in 2011-12, will affect
local schools.
District officials are unclear of how Proposition 1B, aimed to secure state paybacks to schools starting in 2011-12, will affect local schools.
If the proposition passes on May 19, the state would pay back school districts about $9.3 billion over a five- to six-year period beginning in 2011-12 to make up for recent budget cuts, according to the League of Women Voters.
If Proposition 1A doesn’t pass, Prop 1B will not go into effect. That’s because Prop 1A would extend for one year new taxes aimed at fixing this year’s budget crunch, such as the additional 1 percent sales tax and the across-the-board 0.25 percent personal income tax increase. These taxes are currently set to expire in 2011 or earlier. Extending them would bring about $16 billion into state coffers.
“It’s difficult to talk about one without the other,” said Gilroy Unified School District Superintendent Deborah Flores. “The two together would provide funding we need in the long term.”
Another major component of Prop 1A is that legislators would be allowed to boost the state’s reserve from $8 billion to $12 billion.
Propositions 1A and 1B, along with four other propositions, were placed on the May 19 ballot as part of state legislators’ plan to remedy California’s $42 billion budget problems in the short term and in the long term, Assemblyman Bill Monning said.
If Propositions 1A and 1B don’t pass, GUSD could be facing another $3 to $3.5 million cut for next school year, Flores said, which will have grave consequences at the classroom level, like larger class sizes or unfilled vacancies.
Morgan Hill Unified School District Deputy Superintendent Bonnie Tognazzini said the state can expect the current budget shortfall to balloon from $8 billion to $14 billion if the propositions don’t pass.
While Tognazzini couldn’t speak to Prop 1B specifically, she has forewarned the Morgan Hill Unified School District Board of Trustees that money guaranteed to schools from the state’s propositions or the federal government’s stimulus package would likely come with strings attached.
Monning recognized that this funding is just a start to get California back to an adequate level of spending. He noted that California ranks almost last in the nation in per pupil spending.
“Education is at the core of our state’s future,” Monning said. “If we don’t spend more on education spending, we’ll pay more in the back end. High school dropouts are more likely to end up in the criminal justice system. Right now, we’re spending more right now on the incarceration system than the higher education system. One way to reverse those trends is to support 1B.”
Reporter Sara Suddes contributed reporting to this story.
