CUCPTSA Legislative Report May 3, 2012
Local:
CUSD Parent Council Meeting – 4/24/12
The San Juan Hills High School pool is completed. It was CFD funded, is Olympic size (30m and 7ft. deep). Facilities include a visitors locker room and a concession area. The SJHHS stadium is due to have their first football game on 8/22/12.
Deni Christensen, Executive Director, Secondary Schools, Adult and Alternative Education Programs presented a power point presentation on CUSD preparations for Common Core Standards (CCS). Using the CCS will not change the State and District’s role in setting graduation requirements and lesson pacing. The standards are focused on Teaching & Learning and Assessment; integrating knowledge instead of checklist approach to learning and aligned with college and career readiness goals. The Transition plan is-2012-13: Pilot the SMARTER Balance assessment (SBAC) protocol; 2013-14: Field test the SBAC and implement the CCS; 2014-15: Full implementation. During the transition, the district will be communicating with members of the community, working on professional development and upgrading/establishing a digital and assessment infrastructure. At this time, due to budgetary questions, there is no plan regarding technology upgrades; the district is hoping for money from the state or grants. Teachers are receptive to the new standards. 2012-13 will involve a gradual implementation of 5 English Language Arts and 8 Math strategies. Integration of Arts is not planned yet. (An audience member expressed concern about the Arts not being implemented and one suggested it be a part of the professional development process.)
CUSD Budget- Once again Dr. Farley outlined the basic bad news on the district budget. Best case scenario: $30M in cuts; Worst case: $50.1M in cuts. He told us that they are meeting with stakeholders and some were surprised at how bad things really are. He feels they are making positive steps. He will come out with an announcement about he budget issues after the State budget May revise comes out so he has better numbers to work with.
Members of the audience raised concerns about CSR and the pending lay-offs of classified employees such as middle school librarians and campus supervisors. Dr. Farley indicated that the cost of reducing each class in the district by just 1 student is close to $4M so it would be a huge project to raise enough money to make a remarkable difference in class sizes.
Short Term Borrowing
The School Board authorized the borrowing of funds for fiscal year 2012-13 and issuance and sale of tax and revenue anticipation notes and participation in CA school cash reserve program. This action allows the district to use up to $75,000,000 TRANs (short-term debt instruments issued by the school district) to meet cash flow needs for the 2012-13 fiscal year. The district has stated that this action was taken due to cash flow needs due to the timing of anticipated revenue from property taxes, limited reserves, and state funding deferrals.
CUSD Budget update
CUSD continues to consider ways to cut $30-50M from its budget for the 2012/2013 school year. The district has stated that this must be done through a combination of increased class sizes, reductions in staff (layoffs), furlough days, and salary reductions. The superintendent has stated that the only way to realize savings of that magnitude will be to implement all four of these methods in creating a plan. In order to provide “maximum flexibility” in this process, the school board authorized layoff notices for certificated, classified management and non-management employees.
In addition, CUSD and the employee bargaining units have started the negotiation process. At the March 12 school board meeting, the school board approved the district’s “initial proposal” to the bargaining group representing certificated employees and the bargaining group representing classified employees. At the March 25 school board meeting the employee groups presented their initial proposals to the district. State law requires that negotiations begin within 10 days of these public notices.
For more details about these proposals please refer to the board meeting agendas and supporting documents for the March 12, 2012 and March 25, 2012 board meetings available on line at: http://capousd.ca.schoolloop.com/cms/page_view?d=x&piid=&vpid=1325328563740
Class Size Waiver
In addition, the district will hold a public hearing at the May 14, 2012 school board meeting to consider whether to seek a waiver of penalties from the state to increase class sizes in grades K-3 by 2 students. The waiver request states that the district would like to raise average class size in grade K from 31 to 33 students and raise average class size in grades 1-3 from 30 to 33 students. This waiver would allow a maximum class size grade K-3 at 35 students.
Details of the waiver can be found in the board meeting agenda available online at:
http://capousd.ca.schoolloop.com/cms/page_view?d=x&piid=&vpid=1325328563740
Presidential Primary Election
On June 5, 2012, South Orange County voters will be asked to vote on a number of partisan and non-partisan elected offices as well as two statewide propositions and two county-wide ballot measures. CAPTA has taken a support position on Proposition 29, which imposes a tax on tobacco to fund cancer research. PTA has not taken a position on proposition 28, which seeks to limit the amount of time a person may serve in the state legislature to 12 years. It has also taken no position on the two countywide initiatives, A & B. Measure A seeks to change the position of public administrator from an elected to an appointed position and Measure B amends the County Charter to require County Supervisors to enroll in the minimum pension plan offered to county employees.
OC election information and sample ballots by area are available at: http://www.ocvote.com/voting/current-election-info/2012-presidential-primary-election-info/ &
http://www.smartvoter.org/ca/or/
National PTA has great resources available at: http://www.pta.org/pta_votes.asp
STATE UPDATE by Leslie Parker
California tax revenue $3 billion less than target, report says
The Legislative Analyst’s Office has a new number that is adding to California’s financial headache: $3 billion. That’s the total amount that tax revenue has lagged behind goals set by Gov. Jerry Brown’s administration in the current fiscal year.
The shortfall was detailed in a report released on Tuesday by the nonpartisan office, which provides budget advice to lawmakers.
Much of that gap comes from a disappointing April, the most important month for income taxes. Income taxes were $2.07 billion short of the $9.43-billion goal, and corporate taxes fell $143 million short of an expected $1.53 billion, according to the report.
When April's poor results are tacked on to earlier shortfalls, the state has fallen about $3 billion behind tax goals, the LAO said. The ratings agency Standard & Poor's already cautioned Tuesday that poor tax revenue was imperiling California's financial recovery.
It's unclear exactly how much this year's budget deficit will grow because of the tax shortfall. Brown's administration estimated the gap at $9.2 billion in January, but has since said it will grow.
"The number is going to be larger," said H.D. Palmer, a spokesman for Brown's Department of Finance. "We’re going to have a plan to close that gap when we release the May revision," the updated budget proposal that is expected by May 14.
For more, read: http://www.lao.ca.gov/laoapp/budgetlist/PublicSearch.aspx?Yr=2012&KeyCol=592
California K-12 districts not yet planning to spend tax hike money
Gov. Jerry Brown wants K-12 districts to plan for the next school year as if voters will pass his $9 billion tax hike in November, but the vast majority of them are refusing to do so, according to a new Legislative Analyst's Office survey.
Nearly 90 percent of respondents said they will wait until after November to spend the money. In doing so, districts will likely lay off more teachers and increase class sizes beyond the level that Brown wants heading into the election.
District officials typically budget conservatively, assuming a worst-case scenario. This year, they have a huge uncertainty in not knowing how the November tax initiative will fare, yet they are required to decide how many teachers and staff to lay off before the school year starts.
According to the survey, 36 percent of districts said they would budget this year without the governor's tax hike but plan to spend the money in 2013-14. One-third of districts said they would wait until after November to figure out how to spend the money in the second half of the school year, while one-fifth said they would predetermine an automatic trigger spending plan that kicks in next spring if the taxes pass. Only 8 percent of districts said they will pursue Brown's preferred path of installing trigger cuts for the second half of the year should the tax hike fail.
The Analyst's Office recommended several ideas. It said lawmakers should allow districts to shorten the school year without penalty below the current 175-day minimum, which is already lower than the 180 days that had been standard in the previous decade.
The LAO also said lawmakers should delay the final teacher layoff notification date from May 15 to August 1 and enable districts to use a rolling emergency layoff window during the middle of the school year.
The Analyst's Office also said the state should remove most of the remaining strings attached to district funding, such as penalties for enlarging class sizes in kindergarten through third grade and requirements for school bus transportation.
With the state already about $3 billion behind in revenues this fiscal year, lawmakers and Brown are sure to look under every rock for budget solutions. In the past, that has meant delaying payments to school districts. But the Analyst's Office warned today that districts may be incapable of dealing with another deferral as 40 percent said they would have to seek costly outside borrowing and 26 percent said they would have to cut because their borrowing options have been exhausted.
For more, read: http://lao.ca.gov/laoapp/PubDetails.aspx?id=2626
Signatures for Molly Munger's tax plan submitted in Los Angeles; Governor Brown says he has enough signatures for his initiative
Supporters of a tax measure backed by Molly Munger have started submitting the voter signatures they've collected in their qualification campaign. The campaign announced that it is submitting 241,049 signatures to elections officials in Los Angeles County. Backers hope to submit signatures of 775,000 voters in all. Roughly 504,000 valid signatures are needed to qualify the proposal for the November ballot. Campaign spokesman Nathan Ballard said supporters are wrapping up signature-gathering efforts this week. He said he is "optimistic" that they will hit that target. The measure, which is supported by the California State PTA, would raise income taxes on a sliding scale on all but the poorest California workers for 12 years, with most of the estimated $10 billion in revenues going directly to schools and early development programs. A portion of the money would be used to pay down school bond debt for the first several years.
Supporters of the tax measure backed by Gov. Jerry Brown, which would temporarily hike the sales tax and increase income taxes for Californians making more than $250,000 a year, sought earlier this year to persuade Munger to drop her effort so there would not be more than one tax measure on the same ballot. Munger contributed $6 million of her own money to fuel the signature-gathering campaign and run two television ads supporting the measure, which she argues does the most to help schools. The Los Angeles Times has printed an editorial suggesting that Molly Munger “stand down” so that the two competing tax initiatives don’t “split support for a tax increase, sending both to defeat and causing more deep cuts to the very schools Munger aims to protect.”
Gov. Jerry Brown said that he has collected enough signatures to qualify his tax initiative for the November ballot. Constrained by a short timeline, Brown and his supporters raced to collect more than 800,000 valid voter signatures by early this month, relying on robotic telephone calls, mailers and payment of as much as $3 per signature for signatures gathered on the street.
Read more here: http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/ and
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-tax-ballot-measures-20120503,0,1751108.story
Prop 98 lawsuit – California School Boards Association et al vs. State of California et al
It was expected that San Francisco County Superior Court Judge Harold Kahn would issue his final ruling, at the end of April, in the case that alleges that the governor and Legislature violated voters’ will and the minimum school funding requirement under Proposition 98 by diverting billions in tax revenue from the General Fund last year. In his preliminary ruling, Kahn wrote that nothing in the wording of Proposition 98 precluded the Legislature from shifting $5 billion in sales tax and vehicle license fee revenue to a separate account reimbursing counties for taking on some state responsibilities – even though the move shorted K-12 schools and community colleges about $2 billion. That would have been their share under Prop 98, had the $5 billion remained in the General Fund. As of this week, no final ruling has been issued.
Bills supported by California State PTA that we are watching:
AB 1172 (Mendoza) - Charter schools: petition for establishment: decision to grant or deny.
Existing law requires the governing board of a school district, within 60 days of the receipt of a petition for the establishment of a charter school, to either grant or deny the charter, as specified. Existing law prohibits the governing board of a school district from denying a petition unless the governing board makes written factual findings in support of one or more specified findings. This bill would include the finding that the charter school would have a negative fiscal impact on the school district, as specified,
among those findings upon which a school district may base denial of a petition for the establishment of a charter school. Currently in Senate Education Committee.
SB 1458 (Steinberg) - This bill would authorize the Superintendent to develop and implement a specified program of school quality review to complement the API, if an appropriation for this purpose is made in the annual Budget Act. The bill would also require the Superintendent to annually determine the accuracy of graduation rate data, and would delete the requirement that the Superintendent report annually to the
Legislature on graduation and dropout rates. The bill would authorize the Superintendent to incorporate into the API the rates at which pupils successfully promote from one grade to the next in middle school and high school and matriculate from middle school to high school, as well as pupil preparedness for postsecondary education and career. The bill would delete the requirement that the API be used to measure the progress of specified schools and to rank all public schools for the purpose of the High Achieving/Improving Schools Program. Currently in the Senate Appropriations Committee; set for hearing May 7.