Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Elk Grove Citizen : News Elk Grove Unified staff reports dismal future in governor’s budget


Elk Grove Citizen : News

Elk Grove Unified staff reports dismal future in governor’s budget


Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s 2010-11 state budget proposal includes a $1.5 billion reduction in California school district administrative and CEO’s costs.

This would apply to all districts, regardless of the current level of administrative spending or cuts, made prior to 2010-11.

This was a topic presented in Associate Superintendent of Finance and School Support Richard Odegaard’s report to the school board at the Jan. 19 Elk Grove Unified School District board meeting.

He said the apparent good news is that the governor’s mid-year report for 2009-10 calls for no additional cuts for the current fiscal year, but cash is still a major problem for California.


“We could still see low funding levels that may require more staffing reductions. This makes collective bargaining difficult,” Odegaard said.

“The governor said ‘protecting education’ was a major theme, but does that mean no cuts? No,” he said. “It means that we will have to convince the governor to revise his plan to target the cuts almost entirely toward administration. So while there is room for improvement, the protection the governor has offered is the best we have had in the past three years.

“While there are signs of recovery, California’s economy will continue to suffer from high unemployment, currently 12.3 percent, compared with last year, 10.0 percent,” Odegaard said.

Initiatives and major report proposals are in the hopper.