Push for deferral reform | Thoughts on Public Education:
by John Fensterwald - Educated Guess
Given a choice between school funding cut and funding delayed, districts until now have preferred late payments, known as deferrals. They now total about $10.4 billion or 30 percent of state funding for K-12 and community colleges. While bailing out the state short-term, they have created cash flow havoc for charter schools and for many of the state’s nearly 1,000 districts.
Many, but not all. Basic aid districts – those that fund their schools totally from their own property taxes – and those districts more dependent on property taxes than state dollars for their Proposition 98 funding have largely escaped the impact of deferrals. But those