Proposed cutbacks would hurt Conejo school district
Superintendent's column
By Mario V. Contini Superintendent Conejo Valley Unified School District

Superintendent Mario Contini

A volatile state budget: Here we go again

Ronald Reagan's famous quote "There you go again" seems to apply to the looming budget crisis. For the third time in recent years California is facing a serious budget crisis. The governor has proposed draconian cuts to public education and other vital public services. He had hoped to declare 2008 as "the year of education."

When voters approved Proposition 98 nearly 20 years ago, they intended to set minimum and stable funding levels for schools. Instead, Prop 98 has been used as a maximum. The governor proposes to suspend its rules and reduce funding below the minimum it requires.

California continues its annual dive toward the national bottom in per pupil spending. In the past two years alone, it has moved from 43rd to 46th and is now $2,000 below the national average.

For Conejo Valley Unified School District, this means $42 million, a powerful difference in California's investment in our children and the future of our country over the commitment made by more than 90 percent of the other states in America.

Last year the results of 22 studies, collectively called "Getting Down to Facts," were released. The studies were coordinated by Stanford University and commissioned by the governor and the state Superintendent of Public Instruction.

The results indicated that a 40 percent increase in California funding to schools was needed to reach a level considered "adequate."

Those studies and other experts maintain that the public education budget isn't suffering from overspending, but rather underfunding. Experts believe the current statewide crisis isn't caused by the expenditure side of the budget but the revenue side and its dependency on a volatile investment market for revenue.

It's a formula designed for gluttony in good years and disaster in bad ones.

In good years, funds to schools have been provided for specific purposes and with strings attached. New programs were encouraged or mandated with insufficient, deferred or no ongoing funding. The burden of keeping them going was left up to local districts to solve, making it impossible for schools to maintain stateoftheart technology, competitive teacher salaries and effective instructional programs.

Public education isn't the cause of the current budget crisis. In fact, if the governor's proposal for next year is approved, the rate of increased funding to public education since 2003-04 will be only half of the rate of increased revenue in the overall state budget during that same period.

Yet, in each past budget crisis as in the current one, the state's focus has been solely on "cuts," not revenue. Schools have done their part in the past and will do so again in the current crisis. Throughout California, schools have implemented many costefficiency measures, some as painful as reductions in essential staff, programs and school closure. Others have been more positive, such as the energy efficiency programs that will save hundreds of thousands of dollars annually in Conejo's schools.

Over the years, educational cuts, continued underfunding of programs and the herculean efforts of teachers, administrators, support staff and parents have created "super" efficiencies that outweigh the inefficiencies remaining in public education. They've made programs work that shouldn't due to limited funding. Can we expect more? How much more blood can we squeeze out of a turnip?

In the short run, belttightening will certainly be necessary, but in the long run more than cuts and borrowing against the future as was done in the past will be needed. A more stable revenue source is necessary or we will just continue the game of "Here we go again! Been there, done that!" Or as has been said, "If you do what you did, you'll get what you got."

The governor's budget

proposal as affecting schools

•Suspend Prop. 98 approved by the voters 20 years ago.

•$360 million in midyear cuts to K-12 public education this year.

•Drop the Cost of Living Allowance for 2008-09 from 4½ percent to a negative 2 percent (6½ percent drop).

•10 percent across the board cut for 2008-09 for all but a few programs.

•Defer paying schools what they're owed in June until September. (Districts will need to borrow and pay interest to continue operation.)