State budget cuts lead to dramatic increase of school districts on fiscal early warning list
State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell today drew attention to the increased number of school districts that may not be able to meet their future financial obligations without drastically reducing spending due to the state budget crisis.
"Billions of dollars of state budget cuts to education have left local school districts with deficits that local school boards and administrators are attempting to address," said O'Connell. "The decisions they have been forced to make are heartbreaking: increasing class size, laying off teachers and classified staff; eliminating summer school, canceling arts, music, and sports. These are choices no educator in California wants to make. But the alternative is bankruptcy and entering state receivership. "
California has an early warning system designed to alert districts in danger of failing to meet their financial obligations. Interim financial reports on the fiscal health of school districts and county offices of education are prepared semi-annually.
The certifications are classified as positive, qualified, or negative. A positive certification is assigned when the district will meet its financial obligations for the current and two subsequent fiscal years. A qualified certification is assigned when the district may not meet its financial obligations for the current or two subsequent fiscal years. A negative certification is assigned when a district will be unable to meet its financial obligations for the remainder of the current year or for the subsequent fiscal year.
"Because of the sharp downturn in our economy and deep cuts to education, we have seen a dramatic increase in the number of districts that are on the negative or qualified certification list," explained O'Connell. "Unfortunately, the cuts to public education that are part of the state budget are likely to result in even more districts being added to this list."
Just two years ago, there were five districts on the negative certification list and 19 on the qualified list. Today, there are 19 districts on the negative certification list and 89 districts in California with a qualified certification status.
The national and state economic crisis has led to a gaping $24.3 billion deficit in California's state budget. This has led to the Governor and the Legislature proposing to cut K-12 public education by $5.5 billion. Last week the Legislature also approved a plan to defer millions more in payments that are due to schools in the coming year. These cuts and deferrals are in addition to the nearly $12 billion in cuts to public education that were already approved in the budget deal struck this past February.
O'Connell renewed his call to give local educators the ability to try to raise funds for schools locally by urging the Governor and Legislature to approve SCA 6 by Senator Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto). This measure would allow voters to elect to lower the approval threshold for parcel taxes to 55 percent, as they currently are for local school bond elections.
"The time has never been more right than now to take a long, hard look at the way we fund education because our system is broken and because our children deserve better than this," said O'Connell.
For the list of districts, please visit the CDE Web site at http://www.cde.ca.gov/fg/fi/
Yea, this is real sad. The Bonita Unified School District I heard had a Board Meeting on July 1st. and terminated all of the bus drivers and are going to be auctioning off all of their buses, what is this State becoming ? So all of these kids that had to take the bus now must find their own way to school.