In January, I wrote in a diary that “a Category 5 fiscal hurricane about to hit California’s public schools.  The state deficit is close to $42 billion over the next 18 months. That exceeds what the state annually allocates from its general fund for K-12 public education.  Governor Schwarzenegger has proposed cutting over $6 billion from education, constituting a more than 15% reduction in state aid to public schools.” See https://calitics.com/showDi…

The hurricane is now hitting our shores.  The billion-dollar budget cuts to education approved by the Governor and Legislature earlier this month are now impacting our public schools. Across California, thousands of teachers, support staff, administrators and other school employees will receive layoff notices.  

In San Leandro, where I live, cuts tentatively approved by the school board this week will substantially alter, for the worse, the educational experience of all students, particularly those in elementary school. Children in Kindergarten through Third Grade will no longer have the benefit of attending small classes as the class size reduction program is set to be eliminated. Art and PE teachers at the elementary schools are also at risk of being laid off. At the high school, the independent study program for students that do not excel in a traditional school setting will be sharply curtailed.

You can read the details at http://www.insidebayarea.com/d…

Too many cuts to our public schools have already occurred this decade. What’s occurring in San Lenadro is happening statewide.  You can’t cut state aid to education by over 10% and keep programs like class size reduction that are a drain on district’s general fund.  Despite funding from the state, class size reduction costs school districts far more to operate than if the K-3rd grade classes were expanded back to the same size (often 32 or 34 to 1) of 4th and 5th grade.

The Governor and Legislature have shortchanged the educational future of our children. California has the dubious honor of “leading” the nation in having the largest class sizes per teacher.  With the latest budget, our state will zoom further ahead of the rest of the nation in this category.

As budget “deal” rumors continue to fly, members of the Stop the Cuts! Coalition and California Partnership took to the streets and asked community members to “Grade the Governor” on his proposals to slash vital and much needed services and programs, including health care, education, and social services for the elderly, disabled and the poor.

Members of the group — including people from Health Access, the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, 9 to 5 Working Women, Hunger Action LA, Planned Parenthood of Los Angeles, Children’s Defense Fund, ACLU of Southern California and other concerned community organizations — gathered at lunchtime at the intersection of Vermont and Wilshire on Thursday. Participants crossed the streets carrying oversized report cards showing the governor’s failing marks, and asked passersby to fill out the cards and grade the governor. 

Many passersby agreed that especially at this most uncertain time in the country’s financial state, it’s  unacceptable to make deep cuts that target the state’s most vulnerable residents.

Here are a few of the comments that community members made on the report cards. Overall, they indicate the governor’s grades on the budget need to improve:

“I would like to see him work harder to help the workers of Calif., as well as the corporations.  With special attention to Californians with special needs – disabled, seniors – and create good paying jobs.”

“[The Governor] needs to listen to our people.”

“He needs to prioritize what is important to the people of California before he starts laying people off. That won’t fix the situation; it’ll only make it worse.”

“The Governor is not in touch with the people, only with his pockets.”

“I think that he should not cut school programs and help the community to get more education.”

“Governor: You really need to help your people.”

“This Governor is a very uncompassionate person and seems to be very out of touch with the people of California.”

“I voted for him and have regretted it ever since.  He should take some of his millions from movies and give back to the state.”

“I’m without work and need those services. He needs to stop cutting jobs and education!”

“He’s making life hard for all America’s folks.”

Join the dialogue. Negotiations are moving fast in Sacramento. Call the Governor and California legislators now! Tell them they cannot fail California’s most vulnerable by balancing the budget with program cuts alone.

Call the Governor now at 916-445-2841 (Sacramento office) or 213-897-0322 (Los Angeles office).

(Just one voice shouting into the abyss… – promoted by David Dayen)

Last year I was on a BART train headed to San Francisco and spoke to a council member of an East Bay city.  We were discussing the state budget crisis.  I detailed how the Governor’s proposed cuts would harm our schools.  The council member quipped, “The Governor can’t manufacture money.”  I replied, “Yes, but he can manufacture leadership.”  

Leadership from Sacramento has been glaringly absent under the administration of Arnold Schwarzenegger.  He came into office on a promise that he would “protect California’s commitment to education funding.” His January 2009 budget proposals would devastate public education in California.  A friend of mine who served as a school board member for many years in the East Bay sees his budget as setting our schools back two decades.    

I am greatly concerned that the Democratic leadership in Sacramento may be on the verge of reaching a compromise that, despite their best intentions, balances the budget on the backs of our children.  

Nor do I foresee any concession from the Republicans to place an initiative on the ballot for the voters to decide whether to alter in the California Constitution to eliminate the effective veto power the Republican legislative minority has over the state budget.  

Here is an Op Ed I have submitted to my local papers on the California budget crisis:  

——————————

A Category 5 fiscal hurricane about to hit California’s public schools.  The state deficit is close to $42 billion over the next 18 months. That exceeds what the state annually allocates from its general fund for K-12 public education.  Governor Schwarzenegger has proposed cutting over $6 billion from education, constituting a more than 15% reduction in state aid to public schools.  

The deficit did not arise recently. Since the Fall of 2007, when the housing market began to rapidly meltdown, state revenues have dropped precipitously. At the time the Governor claimed excessive spending was the cause of the budget crisis.

If you can not identify the cause of a problem, you can not fix it.  In his January 2008 budget, the Governor’s proposals to raise revenue were, in the words of the Legislative Analyst, “minimal.”  

The state budget eventually adopted was full of accounting gimmicks.  Soon after the November elections, the Governor announced that the budget was grossly out of balance and called the Legislature back for a special session.

The Republicans refused to consider any tax increases.  The Democrats responded by forwarding to the Governor a budget that would have cut the deficit in half and allowed the state to pay its bills for the remainder of the fiscal year. The Governor vetoed the bill.  He did so for ideological reasons.  The Democrats declined to support non-budget items which the Governor sought, including a loosening of environmental review standards on major construction projects.

With the state on the verge of not being able to pay its bills, it is possible a budget deal will be adopted sooner than later. The Democrats are apparently offering a package of 50% cuts and 50% tax increases to solve the budget crisis.  If the Republican legislators agree, and that is a big “if,” there will be $21 billion in cuts to state spending.

Even at this amount, the impact on our public schools will devastating.  Increased class sizes, elimination of sports and music programs, laying off librarians, nurses, counselors and speech therapists, cleaning classrooms every other day to reduce custodial positions, and deferring needed maintenance are all measures school districts are seriously considering to balance their budgets.  

Education is not a luxury to be funded solely in flush financial times.  Each year of a child’s education is precious.  Moreover, as is, California woefully under invests in public education.  According to Education Week, our state ranks 47th in the nation in K-12 grade spending per student when accounting for regional cost differences. The last action any Legislator should agree to is further significant cuts to education.  

When he ran for office, the Governor promised he would “protect California’s commitment to education funding.”  Let’s hold him to his word, and insist that our local Legislators do the same.

They can start by restoring the car tax. When the Governor took office he cut the vehicle license fee by two-thirds. That is now costing us $6 billion a year, the same amount the Governor wants to take away from our public schools.

All children deserve a quality education.  Those who hold political office must ensure that our public schools receive the resources necessary to succeed.

Stephen Cassidy

Attorney and Former School Board Trustee, San Leandro

(Like all too many things in California, higher education has been decimated by thousands of cuts. – promoted by Brian Leubitz)

California Young Democrats ask: What happened to the Master Plan?

Young Democrats mobilize across the State to demand Governor Schwarzenegger halt education cuts

Hundreds of California Young Democrats are up in arms today and will be flooding Governor Schwarzenegger’s phone lines today and on Friday to protest his recent proposals to slash remaining education funding.

“Right when our state needs to make smart decisions to lift us out of this budget crisis, the Governor’s decided that higher education-one of our state’s most lucrative long-term investments-ought to be sacrificed,” said Rocky Fernandez, President of the California Young Democrats. “Anybody who knows anything about our state could tell you that every dollar invested in education leads to three dollars in economic output. Governor Schwarzenegger is throwing away the tractor in favor of the shovel.”

Governor Schwarzenegger’s recent proposals to cut $87.5 million out of higher education coupled with a shortening of the academic year show a total disregard for the promise of California’s Master Plan for Higher Education. Instead of investing in California’s youth, students will start their semesters with nothing but enrollment and budget cuts.

“Students will not roll over and let the California Dream of higher education fade away, ” said Charlie Carnow, Political Director of the California College Democrats. “We call on the Governor to join us in fighting for our state’s future”

Over 2,000 students from UC, CSU, and community colleges gathered today for a protest march from Raley Field in West Sac to the State Capitol to denounce Arnold’s planned higher ed cuts, and 200 more gathered at Arnold’s LA office. The protest is getting big coverage – it’s the featured article at SFGate this evening:

“Kick us out, we will vote you out,” the crowd in Sacramento chanted as they walked along a bridge crossing Highway 99, through downtown and onto the Capital steps. The line of students, which included hundreds from the Bay Area, stretched six blocks, and dozens of motorists honked in support as they drove by.

The fears, voiced again and again, where that if Schwarzenegger’s proposed funding cuts go through, students will end up paying more to attend, while reduced services and a narrower selection of classes….

One student from San Jose State, 24-year-old Joel Bridgeman, said raising the money for college was so tough that he was homeless – couch surfing – for about a year as he went to school.

“Most of the people who work in this building probably either went to CSU, UC or (community college), but as the next generation comes up they are looking for the easy solution,” he said. “They are looking for what is going to get them re-elected. They say our voice doesn’t matter, but I have a message for them… we are here to demand our chance.”

I especially liked that framing – it’s worth noting that millions of Californians owe their current wealth and prosperity to investments in higher ed made in earlier decades. Lt. Gov. John Garamendi, whose office helped organize the march, mentioned that both Ronald Reagan and Pete Wilson increased taxes to prevent destructive education cuts.

Of course, Arnold has no interest in doing the same – he’s a true believer in Milton Friedman’s shock doctrine theories – but lying to the public seems right up his alley:

Aaron McLear, a spokesman for Schwarzenegger, said higher education continues to be high priority for the governor, but considering the scope of the budget deficit, it would be unfair to cut certain items in the state budget while leaving others untouched.

“The governor is as frustrated as the students are that he has to make these cuts. He doesn’t want to make these cuts,” McLear said.

Students weren’t buying it.

And they’re right to not buy it, because it’s a lie. Arnold doesn’t have to make these cuts at all. If he hadn’t cut the VLF and insisted on borrowing our way out of the last big deficit we’d have a much smaller hole now. And if he supported closing the tax loopholes he could potentially raise $12 billion, which would prevent budget cuts that would destroy California’s economic competitiveness.

Organizers of the protest tell me this is just the beginning of activism on the budget. This is the fight of this generation’s lives, and the longer the Yacht Party refuses to accept reality and the need to find new revenues, the more activism we’re going to be seeing from young Californians.

At CSU San Bernardino we had over 1000 faculty, staff, and students gather in a standing room only meeting to discuss the budget cuts for the CSU that are on the table.  The CFA campus president (who has been very active in CFA for 25 years or so) said that he’d never seen the CFA and CSU work together on something as they are working now.  (You’ll recall that faculty nearly struck a year ago over egregiously poor salaries and other problems.)

They’ve set up a website to help stand up for the CSU:

http://www.allianceforthecsu.org/

I encourage all of you to speak up for the CSU and to encourage others to do the same.

It won’t be easy.  Just yesterday I received a newsletter from my Senator (Margett) which read like an internal memo to GOP loyalists  written by Grover Norquist.  Really strong stuff; I was pretty shocked that it was coming out in a general newsletter.  I’m getting similar stuff from my Assemblyman.

But we have to win this fight.  I grew up in Illinois in a family that wasn’t rich.  When I was a child, I wished I lived in California.  It had such amazing public high schools, and after that, I would have a chance to go to some of the greatest public universities  virtually free of cost.  It was an educational beacon on a hill to people outside the state.  No longer.  We can’t let it get any worse.

(Thanks Sen. Kuehl! Keep on fighting! – promoted by Brian Leubitz)

The Budget Process Through July 21st

This is my third essay for 2007 and the first one I have done on the 2007-2008 budget, which has now passed, after a series of cuts and more cuts.  In this first of several essays on the budget, I will set out some of the provisions of the budget originally agreed to by the budget conference committee, the changes that were made to that budget in the Assembly in order to get 6 Republican votes and the reasons for the two-month stalemate in the Senate. Visit my website at www.sen.ca.gov/kuehl to read my previous essays. If you wish to subscribe to receive these essays on a continuing basis, (no charge), please send an e-mail to [email protected], titled “subscribe”.

Edits by Brian For form and space only. See the flip…

Budget Process, January to June

The Governor sends his proposed budget to the two houses of the Legislature in January, shortly after his “State of the State” speech.  It is immediately divided into four or five sections and given to the budget sub-committees in each house to analyze, critique, change and adopt, piece by piece.  Each administrative Agency and unit appears before a budget sub-committee to defend their budget.  In May, the Governor submits a revised budget, called the “May Revise”, based on adjusted (tax) income and expense figures for the current year and expected savings or increases. 

Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of individual line items are adopted in exactly the same language by the budget sub-committees in both houses of the legislature.  These provisions become a part of the budget without going to the budget Conference Committee for resolution, as none is needed.  Those items that are different in the Senate and Assembly versions of their budget sections are sent to the budget Conference Committee where the differences are ironed out and one budget is presented for adoption by both houses.

The Big Four or The Big Five

At the close of the Conference Committee, the closed door dealing among the leaders of both houses and the Governor begins.  This is often referred to as a meeting of the Big Five. Unlike previous governors, however, during the Schwarzenegger administration, the Governor is often absent from these deliberations and the four house leaders are left to try to iron out the differences and horse trade on their own.  This was the case with discussions on the bond package from last year and the prison “reform” package this year.  And it was the case with negotiations related to the Conference budget and cuts taken, as shown below, to get Republican votes on the budget in the Assembly on July 19th.

Why Do We Need Republican Votes on the Budget?

In California, Rhode Island and Arkansas, a 2/3 vote by each house of the state Legislature is required to adopt a budget.  In the other 47 states, only a majority is required, which means that the majority party is held to account for their budget and their priorities, and the voters judge them on those priorities.  In California, the budget is generally held hostage by the minority party (I was in the minority in my first two years in the Assembly), because the budget vote is the only issue the minority can truly affect.

The Conference Budget Before Changes by the Big Four

The Budget put forward by the Conference Committee was already a lean and mean budget in many ways.  It was leaner than the Governor’s May Revision proposal, but managed to reject the Governor’s proposed cuts to CalWorks kids only grants, retained a cost of living increase for the poorest CalWorks working recipients, (however, putting that increase off for six months), and retained funding for the homeless mentally ill the Governor had wanted to cut.  In addition, the Conference budget moved $500,000,000 worth of transit money to the general fund, in order to fill some of the “structural deficit”: the difference between revenues and expenditures.  The reserve was a healthy one: about two billion, approximately what the Governor had in his budget.  The revenue assumption included a $4.8 billion fund balance brought over from last year’s budget, $102.3 billion in revenues and $103 billion in expenditures. The final General Fund reserve in the Conference Budget was projected at $3.4 billion. 

Additional cuts and tax credits added by Assembly

The Budget, as originally passed by the Assembly, reflected even deeper cuts, including deleting all funding for CalWORKs cost-of-living adjustments; providing no General Fund help to cover student fee increases at UC and CSU; delaying, from January to June, the state portion of the SSI/SSP cost-of-living adjustment; reducing funding for Proposition 36; and increasing the monies shifted from public transit to the General Fund to a total of $1.2 billion. 

The budget, as passed by the Assembly and sent over to the Senate on July 19, provided full funding for growth and a cost of living adjustment for K-12 education but did not create new programs, rejected the Governor’s bid to cut $314 million in CalWORKs that would have penalized children and families seeking to become self-sufficient, invested in a 5 percent rate increase for foster family homes, restored $26 million in academic preparation programs at UC and CSU, and included $1.6 billion to fully fund Proposition 42 (transportation). (This is different from the projects that would have been funded by the gas tax revenues shifted into the general fund and referred to, above.)

The Assembly Vote on the Budget

This year, the Assembly voted on the Budget before the Senate, in one marathon session on Thursday night, July 19th.  The Republicans in the Assembly held out for a number of changes until 4:30 in the morning, when they negotiated a $500,000,000 tax credit package in a separate bill, sent the budget to the Senate and left town.

The Senate’s Deliberations on the Budget

Perhaps “deliberations is not quite the right word.  The budget and all the trailer bills (except the amazing tax credit package, which had come out of nowhere) were put up for a vote the next day, Friday, July 20th.  Each budget vote garnered 25 Democrats for, 14 Republicans against and one abstaining.  27 votes are required to adopt the budget and the trailer bills.  The bills were put “on Call” while President pro Temps Perata attempted to get two Republicans to vote.  Throughout the next 23 hours, as all Senators remained on the Floor of the Senate (trying to sleep, if at all, in their chairs or taking turns on the couches), the Republican caucus made their demands clear: they would not vote for a budget unless another $700,000,000 was cut from the budget in order that revenues and expenses would zero out.  Even though there is a very healthy reserve, that was not sufficient.  At 10am Saturday morning, July 21, we were adjourned, with no budget and no budging by the Republicans.

Next…..

Senator Perata told minority leader Senator Ackerman that morning that if his Republican caucus were simply continuing to say “no”, they needed to come up with their own budget, one that clearly showed the cuts they wanted to make.  On Wednesday, July 25th, with the Senate again in session, the Republicans failed to present a budget, but had given the press a list of cuts they would like to make to “balance” the budget, including eliminating the subsistence CalWorks payment made to children whose parents have been unable to find work and have “timed out” of CalWorks, or for children of undocumented parents. The demands also included transferring the 200 million left in the gas tax transportation account that had not already been swept into the budget, into the General Fund, leaving several current transportation projects without funding; exempting certain construction projects from the California Environmental Quality Act relating to greenhouse gas emissions; and attempting to add parental consent for reproductive services for minors in the budget, which the electorate of California has turned down twice.

The next day, Senator Ackerman indicated he did not want the Republican budget to be heard on the floor because even his caucus was divided on it.  The Governor was unable to secure the two Republican votes needed to pass the budget in the Senate.  Republican Senators refused to meet with the Governor and, as the days passed, instead of working on a compromise, the Republican caucus simply increased their demands, cheerfully indicating that they were dedicated to holding out until the Assembly returns into session so they could reopen the entire budget.

No Budget…No Money

For state services, for hospitals, for K-12 education, for community colleges.

See the next essay for the resolution, such as it is, to the budget stalemate.