LAUSD Board of Education Approves 3 Year Budget

As we all so painfully know, the Los Angeles Unified School District is facing the largest budget crisis in its history.  It has sustained round after round of cuts from the State, forcing the Superintendent and his team to make some very painful decisions.  I can say with a fair amount of certainty that Ramon Cortines truly feels every lost job and every cancelled program.  He’s the easiest guy to blame, and he can take it, but he’s really not the bad guy.  Look to our State government that does not put education anywhere near the top of the priority list for real villains – but that’s for another day.

 

Yesterday brought some bittersweet news.  The Los Angeles Unified School Board approved a series of budget recommendations for the 2009-2010 through 2011-2012 school years.  As I’ve written about in the past, California law requires school districts to submit balanced budgets by June 30 for three years in advance regardless of the District’s visibility into the State budget. Remember that the State is only required to budget one year out.  The budget package was approved by a 5-2 vote.   Marguerite LaMotte and Julie Korenstein were the two opposing votes. 

 

Here’s the situation – straight from the Superintendent’s office. LAUSD faces a $1.3 BILLION deficit over the next two school years. That’s right - $1.3 billion!  And most of this is in cuts directly from Sacramento.  The $582 million in Federal Stimulus funds has gone to save jobs, but it clearly doesn’t even come close to closing the gap. 

 

For better or worse, the Superintendent is a realist.  Even he doesn’t like some of his budget recommendations but he knows that he can’t pretend that the news from the State doesn’t exist. To balance the 2009-2010 budget deficit of $869.5 million, the following steps are being taken.  Many of these we already know about.

1.        A reduction of outside consultants and contractors

2.       Delaying textbook purchases as long as they can (they must purchase

       textbooks by law at predetermined intervals but can push it to the very

       last minute)

3.       Layoffs of teachers and non-instructional employees

4.       Larger class sizes

5.      Cancellation of summer school for elementary and middle school

       students

6.       Reduced transportation for students who ride a bus to school

7.       Deferred maintained

8.       Reducing categorical programs

 

Naturally this is horrible and if things don’t change, the next two years will be significantly worse. I have the list of cuts, but I’m hoping that it doesn’t come to that and that I don’t have to publish it.  Honestly, I’m too squeamish.  If help comes from the State, the Federal government and the Unions, and/or any other public or private sources, things can change for the better.  To further alleviate the problems, a Parcel Tax was recommended and approved by the Board.  This basically means a small hike in property taxes that would go directly to the schools to reduce class size.  

 

There is a tiny silver lining.  Faced with such dire circumstances, the District is open to new ways of thinking and new ideas from the outside.  MOMS UNITE is working (pro bono, of course) directly with the Superintendent and several other departments at LAUSD to help.  We’re thrilled, we’re grateful and we’re inspired.

 

Victoria

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MOMS UNITE is a grassroots parent advocacy group devoted to improving public education in California. To join, please send your contact information to join@moms-unite.org, join our Facebook group and follow us on Twitter @MOMSUNITE.

Comments

[Denise]

Thanks for keeping us in the loop and following this so closely. Has anyone tried to suggest for private donors to get us out of this mess? I keep thinking that if donors were able to donate money to the public schools, without deciding which school it goes too, and then give those people a tax break for their donations, that we could get our schools out of trouble so easily.