Schools: Gov. plan preferred

DOWNTOWN — Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s 2009-10 budget proposal includes billions in midyear cuts to education but underrepresents the damage that would hit schools in the form of about $500 in per-student reductions, a Sacramento lobbyist for the Glendale and Burbank Unified school districts said Friday.

Schwarzenegger presented his budget proposal Wednesday, which included a midyear reduction of $2.08 billion, as well as flexibility measures to help districts reorganize funds and better position themselves to handle what would amount to an average loss of about $300 per student, according to the Department of Finance.

But the midyear cuts, combined with a slim budget to face increasing costs next year, will add up to an actual reduction of about $500 per student, lobbyist Jeff Frost said.

“While the governor’s staff would like to characterize it as, ‘We love schools, we’re going to cut you less,’ that’s really not the case,” Frost said.

The Glendale and Burbank districts would be able to weather reductions for the rest of the current school year, Frost said, but beyond that they would have to find ways to cut costs, including possibly eliminating programs and slashing jobs.

Schwarzenegger staff members said Wednesday that the governor is suggesting a smaller cut to education than the original $2.5 billion he proposed in November. But the new plan would defer payments to schools for the months of January, February and April until July, in a “gimmick” that will allow the state to account for those payments in next year’s fiscal budget, Frost said.

The deferral would work like an IOU, with districts having to use loans to cover regular payments until the state would reimburse them in July, he said.

The Legislature had already decided to defer payments to schools in the months of January and February, when it passed the 2008-09 budget in September, a step that forced districts to prepare to take loans in those months.

If the governor’s proposal passes, local school districts statewide would have to take out additional loans to cover for more deferred payments, Frost said.

“The frightening part about this is, what position does it put us in?” Glendale Supt. Michael Escalante asked, explaining that any fluctuations in funding guarantees would be dangerous for districts almost halfway through the academic year.