Organizations representing school districts and superintendents are trying to stop a last-minute effort to limit the size of their budget reserves, which they’re characterizing as a bald-faced attempt by Gov. Brown and the Legislature to meddle with their finances. With the Legislature set to vote Sunday on the measure and the state budget, they have two days to head it off.
Issuing a warning to Gov. Jerry Brown, the presidents of three main education organizations threatened Friday to oppose the governor’s proposal to strengthen the state’s rainy day fund – which is on the November ballot – if he allows the cap on districts’ reserves to go through.
The cap on reserves, which education organizations say they never saw coming, was inserted this week in the state budget trailer bill, which is the technical language accompanying the
As of next year, state law will reset the minimum for school districts’ reserves. For Los Angeles Unified it will be 1 percent and for small districts, which have less room for error during a fiscal crisis, it will be 5 percent. For most districts, the minimum will be 3 percent.
The
Coming out of the recession, a number of districts have built up reserves much larger than that: 20 to 30 percent in some of the smaller districts. Initially they did this because they didn’t know if Proposition 30 – which raised sales and income taxes partly to help fund schools – would pass. Districts protesting closed-door deal restricting control over their budgets | EdSource Today: