By Sara Ballenger

The Legislative Analyst’s Office has made a recommendation to the state legislature that is going to be watched closely by the Los Altos and the Mountain View-Los Altos Union High School districts — to phase out Basic Aid funding from the state over a three-year period.

A Basic Aid District receives a basic amount of general funding from the state, since the local property tax revenue within the district exceeds what could be provided under other state funding formulas.

This is not the first time the nonpartisan LAO has made this recommendation to the legislature, but it has yet to appear in a bill. The last day for bill introduction is Feb. 21.

“Our concern is to provide equitable general purpose funding to all school districts in the state,” said Robert Manwaring, the K-12 education director for LAO. “The state has been working to equalize school districts by moving the least-funded schools upward and moving some of the top-funded schools down.”

In addition to improving inequities in district funding, eliminating Basic Aid would also save the state an estimated $17.1 million, according to the LAO. With the state facing a $30 billion budget deficit, legislators have already returned to the Capitol for a special December session to make the first $10 million in cuts, including cuts in K-12 education.

If the state were to cut basic aid, the educational programs in both local districts could take a big hit.

“As I read the Legislative Analyst’s Office recommendation, it would eliminate the community funding of our district. MV-LA would no longer be funded by local property taxes but would instead be funded by state aid,” said MV-LAUHSD Superintendent Rich Fischer. “I did some very quick calculations of the impact of this on our budget. “If it were done on today’s dollars, MV-LA’s annual revenues would be reduced from $32,157,252 to $21,620,645. We would lose around $10.5 million, or approximately one-third of our revenue, per year.”

Fischer added that since over 83 percent of his district’s total budget is spent on employee salaries, benefits and associated costs, if the state were to phase out basic aid, the quality of the district’s educational program would be “devastated.”

The Los Altos School District is not yet a Basic Aid District, but hopes to become one in the 2004-05 school year.

Key factors in determining a district’s Basic Aid status include how fast property values escalate compared to growth in enrollment and cost-of-living increases from the state.

Superintendent Marge Gratiot is taking the LAO’s recommendation in stride.

“My sense is that this is only a recommendation from the Legislative Analyst’s Office at this point, and only concerns the $120 a year per student those districts get from the state in addition to what their property taxes generate,” Gratiot said. “In our case, with 4,000 students, assuming we go into Basic Aid in a year or two, it would cost us about $480,000 per year.”

Governor Gray Davis is expected to unveil his budget Jan. 10 for fiscal year 2004, which begins July 1.

For more information, logon to www.lao.ca.gov.