Okay, once again there is NO budget ...so there is ONLY speculation, including mine!! But assuming that we all want to know the latest "guesses" of those in Sacramento closest to the engagement, I provide the following:
Remembering that this is NOT official and is just another in a series of guesses... I spoke with one of our Sacramento friends on Friday, and the basic budget story is that Sacramento is continuing to “talk” about the budget and actually beginning to get serious. Apparently for the FIRST time the “Big 5” met (as a total group) this past week. There is NO anticipation that this budget will be resolved prior to at least the middle or late September – which is probably optimistic. The overall anticipation is that the education budget is likely to look much like the May Revise – though there may be changes that harm us in RUSD and the potential for some of this to be ONE-time money. Another though similar view of this was in yesterday's Sacramento Bee from long-time political columnist Dan Walters.
On the federal "job dollars" front, there is a Sacramento opinion that we will actually get the money and it will be ADDITIVE – that’s great news if it happens. There is a legislative bill (AB184) on the table that would provide the structure. The allocation at this point seems to be on a pure ADA basis (e.g., $200/ADA) versus by Title I which was discussed at one point (and is an inequitable distribution). The restrictions on the money are that it must be spent on site-level personnel (versus District Office) and must be spent within two years (i.e., 10-11 or 11-12). What this would likely do for us, IF this is accurate -- it could help us mitigate further layoffs and reductions that we know right now we will need to resolve our 2011-12 deficit of $30 million.
Given the current dire conditions and continued grim predictions for the days ahead, any news is good news.
ReplyDeleteIt is especially good to hear that folks in Sacramento recognize that new money from the federal government is to be used to provide support at school sites-where the students are.
And though this federal money has been dubbed a 'jobs bill' it could have as easily been called the 'maintain reasonable class size bill' or, 'support of important school programs bill' or, 'students first bill.'
Each is equally as true as a jobs bill.
Or, 'teacher & support staff funding bill',
ReplyDelete