LASD loses basic aid status
By Kathleen Acuff, Town Crier Staff Writer
With the state facing a deficit of $6 billion to $10 billion next year and the Legislative Analyst’s Office recommending that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger consider reducing education’s portion when he looks at slimming the overall state budget, school districts are drawing up their annual financial projections with fear and trembling.
Like most districts, those in Los Altos prepare financial reports three times each school year. But, as Joe White, associate superintendent of the Mountain View-Los Altos Union High School District, said, “Because of the state of the economy of most districts, the time spent tweaking the numbers and analyzing the data has increased exponentially in recent years.”
Assistant Superintendent Randy Kenyon of the Los Altos School District said, “Don’t put a lot of faith in the projections right now. There are too many unknowns.”
In the 9-12 district
Estimated deficits for the three-year period are $571,660 in 2004-2005, $480,994 in 2005-2006, and $443,525 in 2006-2007. The district’s multiyear budget projection assumes that enrollment will grow by 75 students and property taxes will rise 4.5 percent each year.
A 2 percent salary settlement for all employees, retroactive to July 1, 2003, is the source of most of this year’s deficit, White reported. The associate superintendent for business services said reinstated classified positions that had faced elimination Dec. 31 added to that expense.
The slow growth of property taxes, which White believes will rise by no more than 3 percent for 2004-2005, made a dent in the budget as well. He said a reduction in unsecured taxes is to blame, but he expects a leveling off “in the near term.” Ninety percent of the district’s taxes are secured, however, and White expects them to grow by at least 6 percent per year.
In the K-8 district
Reflecting the trend throughout the state, the elementary school district’s expenditures exceed estimated revenues. Most of the district’s revenue comes from property taxes.
Kenyon now expects the district’s property taxes to grow by only 5.19 percent. Earlier projections by the business manager and the Citizens’ Advisory Committee for Finance were for 5.5 percent growth over last year. Kenyon plans to enlist the committee’s aid in “quantifying all those variables” in his Dec. 6 projections.
Two “knowns” are the impact of the property tax revenue transferred to Bullis Charter School and special education expenses. Kenyon said that since the last financial projection, he has learned that a charter school’s portion of local property tax revenue is transferred from a district before the district’s portion is compared with the revenue limit.
Kenyon reported that $765,326 of the local net property tax revenue of $17,810,127 was transferred to Bullis Charter School after the current budget was adopted. State aid, including the $45,605 that comes to the district through its revenue limit status, lacks the heft to balance this impact. Kenyon estimated that $795,545 of a net $18,801,558 would go to the charter school in fiscal year 2006, but he expects the district to be back to basic aid status by then.
Special education expenses for the current school year are estimated at $5.1 million. State and federal funds pay for just under half of the cost of the program, and the district pays the rest, Kenyon reported. He said federal funds are supposed to pay 40 percent of special education costs, but the district has received only about 25 percent of that amount.
