By Sara Ballenger

A late but balanced state budget was approved by the assembly last week, but not after more than $500 million in budget cuts to local government and fee increases for the University of California system; and $10.7 billion in deffered spending and borrowing.

However, included in the $71 billion budget, was an additional $50 million in spending, earmarked for equalization funds for the state’s revenue limit school districts, including the Los Altos School District.

“The goal was to equalize per pupil funding and provide money to help districts who are below per pupil funding, or revenue limit districts,” said 21st district assemblyman Joe Simitian, who co-authored the bill. “In Los Altos’ case that will mean between $70,000 to $75,000 extra.”

In 1972, the state imposed revenue limits on school districts, or a cap or general fund revenue per student. The Los Altos School District is a revenue limit district, according to Randy Kenyon, assistant superintendent of business services.

The revenue limit was based on the amount of funding that voters within each school district had authorized through previous tax elections.

Central to the issue is the method the state employs to determine how much money to allocate to each district.

The 1976 California Supreme Court decision, Serrano v. Priest, ruled that schools should spend money at the same level to ensure equal educational opportunity for students statewide.

According to Kenyon, the state set the district’s revenue limit based on the taxing level in the district prior to 1972.

The state also funds an annual inflationary increase. Kenyon thinks the district’s taxing level was below the state average so it received larger annual inflation increases than those districts that were above the state average.

According to the state, to achieve equality of funding among schools, the state provided the annual inflationary increase at higher levels for low spending districts and lower inflationary increases for higher spending districts.

About 73 percent of the Los Altos district’s funding comes from the state, according to the district. When the state economy suffers schools receive lower cost-of-living adjustments or inflation increases. However this year, according to Simitian, there will be no cost-of-living increases for schools.

“All in all its not a great year,” Simitian said. “All things considered we were able to protect education to a great degree. It’s not a great budget for education, but it’s a pretty good budget for education, considering the states financial situation.”

The financial forecast for the state still looks gloomy, with the possibility of a 7.9 billion deficit next year.

“I am concerned that the budget agreement only postpones even harder decisions into the next several years,” said Los Altos School District Superintendent Marge Gratiot. “We are in for a several-year period of uncertainty and political maneuvering that will make it very difficult to do long-term planning.”