The Ides of March will be an ugly day for too many California educators. March 15 is the deadline set by the state education code for school districts to notify teachers they may not have a job in the fall. Given the continued sorry state of the state budget, layoffs will abound as districts do what is necessary to bring their budgets into balance.

The state Legislature has been wrestling to close a $6 billion gap in revenues in the current fiscal year while facing another $14 billion shortfall starting July 1.

The unfortunate and unintended consequence of Proposition 13, which slashed property taxes in 1978, is that control of local school budgets has been thrusted into the fiasco that is Sacramento politics.

Education funding consumes almost 40 percent of the state budget — there's no way to bring it into balance without cutting education funding.

So Livermore trustees have decided to eliminate 67 positions, and Pleasanton board members voted to cut 32 teaching slots. It's the same story across the state. State revenues have fallen from a high of $104 billion to an estimate of $84 billion this year, a number that is expected by the nonpartisan legislative analyst to remain flat for the next two years.

The governor and his co-conspirators in the Legislature have failed to effectively deal with this problem since the Governator came into office. He set up a blue-ribbon commission that

delivered recommendations to change the taxation system last fall — a report that gathered nothing but dust instead of the focused attention it deserved.

So don't beat up the local school trustees who are doing what they need to do in a thankless job. Direct your ire at Sacramento. But, save some for the politicos in Washington, D.C., who are spending at a stunning rate — the difference, of course, is that Washington can print money.

BACKWARD LOGIC: You have to wonder just what the policymakers in the White House are thinking.