LAO outlines a cuts-only budget scenario if taxes are not extended
K-12 would lose an additional $4.8 billion—or $800 per student—under analyst’s scenario
Published: February 15, 2011
Legislative Analyst Mac Taylor last week listed possible spending cuts that would be needed to balance the 2011-12 budget if the state Legislature rejects Gov. Jerry Brown’s proposal to allow voters to consider extending some temporary taxes, or if voters reject the extensions.
“We have had to go far beyond our normal comfort level” to identify the $13.5 billion in additional cuts that that would be needed—beyond the $12.5 billion Brown has already proposed—Taylor wrote in response to a request from state Senate Budget Committee Chairman Mark Leno, D-San Francisco.
While cuts to higher education, health and social services, criminal justice and the judiciary, general government and local government, and transportation and resources are also addressed, Proposition 98 reductions account for nearly 40 percent of the possible cuts—with more than 30 percent coming from K-12 public education.
“The result of removing the governor's tax proposals is an approximately $2 billion decline in the Proposition 98 minimum guarantee for 2011-12. Balancing the budget with the constraints you have given us, however, would require even larger reductions in K-14 funding,” Taylor wrote to Leno Feb. 10. “As such, our list of alternatives includes a total of $4.8 billion in Proposition 98 reductions—$2 billion due to the assumed rejection of the governor’s tax proposals, plus an additional $2.8 billion to help bring the budget into balance.”
A table outlining possible “policy changes intended to help school districts cope with the loss of funding” includes eliminating the K-3 Class Size Reduction Program, reducing K-l2 general purpose funding by 2.3 percent, and eliminating state funding for home-to-school transportation funding. Other suggestions range from allowing shorter school years (“with a reduction of one week yielding approximately $1 billion in savings”) to reducing the amount of categorical funding for basic aid districts.