Publication Date: Wednesday, January 21, 2004
State budget for schools 'placid'
State budget for schools 'placid'
(January 21, 2004) Palo Alto school officials not worried about governor's plans, just the future
by Rachel Metz
The governor's draft budget elicited cheers from a few at last Tuesday's school board meeting, but the future's still not too bright for district finances.
If Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's budget goes through, the district won't have a major fight for property-tax revenue as it did last spring. In fact, Deputy Superintendent Bob Golton describes the current state budget as "placid."
School board President Cathy Kroymann echoed his words.
"I think that was basically good news for us. We had been anticipating something worse and maybe even another attack on our basic-aid property taxes," Kroymann said.
In 2003, Gov. Gray Davis proposed to take a percentage of each basic-aid school district's property-tax revenue to help balance the state budget. In Palo Alto that meant losing a quarter of its $108 million budget. Palo Alto and other basic-aid districts launched a massive campaign against the proposal, which was eventually withdrawn.
Though Schwarzenegger's budget doesn't appear harmful to schools, the district faces other budget problems, including a $3 million drop in expected in property-tax revenue.
Kroymann said the $3 million gap is in addition to about $4 million in cuts last year, trimming, re-organizing and leaving unfilled positions empty.
"We've already done all of what you might consider easy budget cuts and now we're going to be going into the very difficult ones," she said.
This round may mean pink slips for district employees, which the district avoided last year. The district is also looking at other ways to save money and how those might impact the district, Kroymann said.
"I should say it will involve a loss of jobs and will impact the program we offer in the (district)," she said.
While it appears the district's biggest financial hurdle is local, there's still a possibility of problems stemming from Sacramento -- particularly if voters fail to approve the $15 billion state bond, Proposition 57 on the March 2 ballot.
"All bets are off if that bond doesn't pass," Golton said. Proposition 58, a state balanced-budget measure linked to 57, also needs to pass, he indicated.
"What's Next Sacramento?" -- a Palo Alto-based parent group that was preparing itself for a possible fight for funding -- is also looking ahead to the March vote.
"We're not letting out a great big sigh of relief right now," group leader Lauren Janov said.
Rather, they're letting out a small sigh, she said.
"The big Sacramento picture looks OK for now for us," she said.
Rachel Metz can be e-mailed at rmetz@paweekly.com.
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