California education groups are increasingly worried that even a proposed state tax increase won鈥檛 be enough to solve school funding woes, after the state announced that its budget deficit had grown to nearly $16 billion.
When Gov. Jerry Brown, a Democrat, announced a dramatic spike in the deficit this month, he continued to press for protecting K-12 and higher education funding despite the gloomier fiscal numbers.
But education advocacy groups still worry about education spending and expressed concern that even the high-stakes November initiative would not be enough to solve serious fiscal problems for schools.
Gov. Brown鈥檚 revised budget proposes a 16 percent hike in K-12 spending, on the assumption that the ballot initiative will pass.
In January, he had projected a $9.2 billion budget deficit for the rest of fiscal 2012 and fiscal 2013. However, lower-than-expected state tax revenues so far this year resulted in the budget shortfall growing by $6.5 billion to $15.7 billion.
Mr. Brown announced in his revised budget that he would slash state spending by $8.3 billion to help close the deficit. However, he stressed in a May 14 statement that he would continue to push for protecting K-12 spending. 鈥淲e can鈥檛 balance the budget with cuts alone; that would just further undermine our public schools,鈥� the governor said.
The ballot initiative would raise the income tax by a quarter cent, while taxes would increase on those earning $250,000 or more annually. If it fails, an automatic round of some $6 billion in cuts to public schools will go into effect in January next year.
But in a May 14 statement, Joshua Pechthalt, the president of the California Federation of Teachers, which represents more than 100,000 educators, warned that even a successful ballot initiative should only be part of any funding solution.
He said, 鈥淎s important as it is to pass a revenue measure in the fall, it doesn鈥檛 let the legislature off the hook to find more revenue now.鈥�
And even Gov. Brown鈥檚 proposed funding increase would not help districts that have to set their budgets in June, argued Education Trust-West, an education policy research group based in Oakland.
鈥淭his strategy will likely lead to additional staff layoffs and cuts in support services. It will also allow districts to slash a total of 15 additional school days, leaving California with the shortest school year in the nation,鈥� the group said in a statement.
