At its March 21 meeting, and after lengthy discussion, the California School Boards Association’s Board of Directors voted to oppose Propositions 1A, 1C, 1D and 1E that will appear on the May 19 ballot.  This vote was overwhelmingly approved by CSBA’s delegates via an online poll.

The Board of Directors did not take this action lightly.  During the discussion, members acknowledged that there are valid arguments in support of as well as in opposition to each of these ballot measures.  On balance, however, the Board came to the conclusion that these measures do not solve or even address the state's ongoing structural imbalance between revenues and expenditures.  Instead, they add more broken layers to an already broken system and, in the Governor’s own words, “just kick the can down the road.”  Accordingly, the short-term benefits of these measures would be outweighed by even more intractable problems in the near future.

An overriding concern of CSBA is generating the revenues needed to fund our public schools at the level needed for students to be successful.  These ballot measures could take us further from that goal by arbitrarily restricting state spending and—through the complicated lottery securitization scheme—essentially commit an additional $1 billion per year to debt service forever.

The Board of Directors also voted to support Propositions 1B and 1F.  The Board understands that 1B will not take effect unless 1A also passes.  CSBA’s support for 1B is consistent with the Association's support for maintaining the minimum funding requirements of Proposition 98 as well as our support for a level of funding needed to establish and maintain a world class system of public schools.