Parents plead for more school say on state dollars

Danette Goulet

NEWPORT-MESA -- Local parents have joined a regional letter-writing

campaign to implore California Gov. Gray Davis to give school districts

more control over how they can spend state funds.

Newport-Mesa Unified School District’s PTA presidents are encouraging the

community to take part in the effort.

Currently, the state budget dictates how school districts use much of

their money.

“It’s mainly because the government is telling us how to spend the money

we have, which may not be bad in itself; but districts across the state

may not have the same needs,” said JoAnne Russell, PTA president at

California Elementary School.

During the last several years, the amount of state funds earmarked for

specific educational uses has increased. Davis in January proposed an

$88-billion budget that included a $28.3-billion public schools package.

Nearly $1 billion of that amount was targeted for education initiatives.

Although school officials and parents were glad to see such a strong

emphasis on education, they said there is a great lack of money that

district officials can determine how to spend.

PTA leaders hope an influx of pleas from parents will aid in reversing

this trend of state control of school funds.

“It’s my understanding that Gov. Davis wants to hear from ‘real’

parents,” said Jill Money, Harbor Council PTA president. “Thats why we

thought it was so important.”

School officials said it is a problem when the state designates funds for

specific purposes, because it assumes that all school districts have the

same needs.

“They’re telling us to, say, spend it on textbooks and maybe we already

bought textbooks out of the general fund last year -- so we lose out on

that money,” Russell said. “Some governmental agencies want to take too

much control away that should be local.”

There are also initiatives and programs that are not fully funded by the

state, and they must be partially paid for by what is left of the general

fund, Money said.

Class-size reduction is a prime example of that, she said.

“Irvine can’t take anymore encroachment on their general fund, so they’re

bringing class sizes back up to 30,” Money explained. “We don’t want to

see that happen.”