California Schools Facing $1.7 Billion In Cuts

Fewer School Days In Store?


By Dell Hill

Hat Tip - Doug Ross

The folks in California are discovering that they have a problem with finances.

Tax revenues missed their projected goal by a scant $705 million dollars in the first quarter of the fiscal year and that means a built-in budget cut to California schools in the neighborhood of $1.7 Billion (Billion, with a “B”) dollars.

Here’s our report from SFGate, the home of the San Francisco Chronicle.

“Public schools in California, which already spend less per student than those in 28 states, are bracing for a $1.7 billion cut that may wipe out high-school sports and student busing, and trim the academic calendar by seven days next year.

Automatic cuts built into this year's budget, intended to protect bondholders if revenue falls short of projections, are drawing new attention after California fell $705 million behind estimates in the first quarter.

A shortfall of $1 billion will slash hundreds of millions of dollars from universities and care of the elderly and disabled. A deficit of $2 billion will trigger reductions to public schools, creating "a fiscal emergency" that could leave some districts insolvent, a group of superintendents told Governor Jerry Brown in a Sept. 15 letter.

"We're certainly really, really close to the first round of trigger cuts and inching closer to ours," said Debra Brown, lobbyist for the California School Boards Association, referring to the second round of cuts concentrated on schools. "It is a little troubling."

There’s more, and you can read it all by clicking right here.

A “..little troubling”?  Really?

Doug Ross@Journal points out a potential area where Californians might have saved a couple of education dollars.

As I’m sure you all know by now; Governor Moonbeam signed the California “Dream Act” legislation, which makes illegal aliens eligible for free or drastically reduced cost college educations.  And Doug wonders:

Even though illegal aliens cost the state's taxpayers at least $10.4 billion a year, Governor Brown wants to subsidize illegal behavior and encourage more of it. All while kids are forced to go without an ever-increasing number of school days.

Which leads to my definitive conclusion that Democrats are disorganized schizophrenics.

And painfully stupid to boot.

Well, there you have it.  A $1.7 billion dollar cut to schools on the one hand and a $10.4 billion dollars gift from the state’s tax payers to illegal immigrants on the other.

Sweeeeeet!