By Sara Ballenger
Local schools dependent on state funding have fewer than 45 days from the approval of the state’s budget Sept. 5 to reconfigure their budgets. The biggest fiscal change for schools is in the form of a $681 million delay in apportionments into the 2003-04 fiscal year, up from the $475 million delay outlined in the budget the Senate passed in June.
The reason for the delay is that the budget adopted by the state Legislature has less tax revenue than the budget the Senate approved in June. The new budget does not include an increase in vehicle license fees or cigarette tax, according to the state.
On the positive side, the state’s budget maintained its funding of a 2 percent cost-of- living increase for schools. Minus the funding deferrals, schools will basically receive the same total dollar amount Governor Gray Davis proposed in May.
However, schools will still feel a bit of a budget crunch. Taking the biggest hit will be the categorical programs at both the Los Altos and the Mountain View-Los Altos Union High school districts.
“A categorical program is a program where the state will give you funds as long as you follow the state’s guidelines for the program and spend the funds how the state tells you to spend it,” said Ralph Johnson, associate superintendent of business services for the high school district. “A lot of funding over the past 10 years from the state has come with strings attached. Last year, out of a $32 million budget about $3 million of our budget was in special project income from the state. That is most in jeopardy.”
According to the state, the bulk of the delayed apportionments affect supplement grants for a full year to the amount of $241.7 million; Targeted Instructional Improvement grants delayed the final 25 percent apportionments to the amount of $184.4 million; Home-to-School Transportation delayed the final 26.9 percent apportionment to the amount of $139.6 million; School Improvement Program delayed the final 26.9 percent apportionment to the amount of $115.3 million.
The reason more money was not taken away from schools during this budget process is that the majority of the state budget for schools falls under the protection of Proposition 98, an amendment to the California Constitution that mandates that “a minimum amount of funding be guaranteed for elementary and secondary schools and community colleges.”
Another element of school funding in the state is the 1978 passage of Proposition 13, which amended the state constitution to limit the level of local general purpose property tax to 1 percent of the full cash value of the property. Schools could no longer raise funds by raising local tax rates and became more dependent on state funding.
However, some school districts, including the Los Altos School District are more dependent on state funding than others.
“We are already in a precarious financial situation this year, but there are no pleasant surprises in this budget and we are not anticipating any in the near future,” said Marge Gratiot, superintendent of the Los Altos School District. “That means that to keep our program reasonably intact we are going to have to rely on local sources of funding and not hope that the state will bail us out.”
Unlike the elementary school district, the Mountain View-Los Altos Union High School District is a basic-aid district, Johnson said. A basic-aid district gets most of its revenue from property taxes, which are at a certain level, rather than the state, Johnson added.
Santa Clara County Superintendent Collen Wilcox hopes that districts throughout the county will soon see equalization in funding.
“Public schools are in a terrible situation, and we have just been hit worse,” Wilcox said. “We have to examine our values not to increase cigarette tax, which just improves the lot of the tobacco industry. Is that the compromise we want? We need an equalized basic funding source across all districts.”
