Cuts could scuttle reforms for L.A. Unified
SCHOOLS Education
The district might have to trim $36. million this year and up to $500 million next year.
Los Angeles school officials received grim news Thursday: They may have to slash $36 million from the current budget and up to $500 million next year. Those reductions could affect reform efforts, salaries and classroom programs.
In his preliminary budget released Thursday, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger proposed reducing education spending for public schools by $4.35 billion next year, but the immediate panic was caused by his plans to slash $360 million this year, which will be more than half over by the time officials scramble to propose cuts. The Los Angeles Unified School District, with 700,000 students, receives about 13% of the state's kindergarten through twelfth-grade education funding.
Board of Education president Monica Garcia called the cuts -- current and future -- unacceptable.
"We are coming from a place where we are in an educational crisis," she said. "The proposal . . . absolutely undermines what we need to do."
The district was already trying to identify about $100 million to cut from next year's budget to keep from sinking into debt, which could harm not only the bond and credit rating of the nation's second-largest school district but also its students.
The focus of most of the school board's attention this year has been on crafting reforms, including some that probably would add to district costs.
Garcia said parents, administrators and educational groups contacted her after governor announced his plans. "Already there's real outrage," she said.
Los Angeles Unified School District officials knew the governor planned to reduce education spending but said they envisioned nothing approaching this magnitude.
"It's very disappointing," said budget director Roger Rasmussen. "We want to protect the classrooms but . . . we'll see what the impact will be in the next few months."
Rasmussen said he couldn't recall such a big cut since 1978, when voters approved Proposition 13, which limited property taxes and changed the state's system for funding schools.
Thursday's grim numbers should have been no surprise, said David Long, the governor's appointed education secretary.
"Starting back in October, I've talked with a multiplicity of superintendents across the state," Long said. "They started preparing for this months and months ago."
