Education Leaders Brace For Further Unprecedented Cuts to Education

West Sacramento , Calif. – With the failure of yesterday’s ballot measures, California’s 6 million students will face the consequences of yet another round of devastating cuts to schools.

Regardless of the election results – and even had they passed, the initiatives would not have addressed the state’s ongoing structural imbalance between revenues and expenditures – education was marked for additional cuts after the Governor announced last week that the state currently faces deficits up to $21.3 billion.

His proposed revisions named education as a primary target for additional drastic cuts, which include $1.4 billion, or $235 per student, in the current fiscal year and an additional $1.5 billion in cuts next year. This lack of investment toward the future of California’s students will put the economy at further risk.

Under either of the Governor’s proposed May revisions, schools are facing cuts at a level never before seen in the state’s history, some of which would take effect within the next six weeks, before the school year ends.

“We have six weeks left in the school year and our Governor is proposing that schools find a way to cut up to $1.4 billion before then,” CSBA President Paula S. Campbell said. “This is an unfathomable request given the magnitude of cuts already made in the last several years.”

State officials have implied that federal stimulus funds should backfill reductions to education funding, dampening the effects of these catastrophic cuts. However, after the Governor’s proposed budget revision, stimulus funds will backfill less than half of the cuts schools can expect to take throughout the remainder of this fiscal year and next.

As a result of the budget passed in February, more than 30,000 teachers and administrators have received pink slips and more than 10,000 custodians, bus drivers and other school employees have been laid off. The new cuts will result in the layoffs of tens of thousands of school employees who teach and provide essential services to students.

“Voters have continuously expressed that investing in our children’s education is a top priority, yet we are still the first to hit the chopping block” CSBA Executive Director Scott P. Plotkin said. “It’s mind boggling to imagine what these additional cuts will do to our children’s future. Hopefully, this will serve as a wake-up call to our state leaders that it is time to do something about the state’s irrational funding system for public education.”

For more information about additional cuts to California’s school funding, please contact Brittany McKannay at (916) 669-3244 or bmckannay@csba.org.