Schools hit less by latest budget

Christine Carrillo

Somewhat heeding the pleas of Californians to spare public education

from the devastating cuts announced in January, Gov. Gray Davis

announced Wednesday his revisions to the state budget for the 2003-04

fiscal year, which kept the state’s dedication to education, for the

most part, intact.

But local education officials said they will still face a

difficult year ahead.

Although the state’s financial shortfall fell closer to $38

billion than the $35 billion assessed in January, Davis’ revised

proposal will give K-12 schools $700 million more in state and local

funds than proposed earlier this year. Community colleges will

receive $304 million more in funding, and the University of

California and California State University systems managed to escaped

further cuts.

While the proposal provides educational officials with a barometer

for their financial futures, they will still have to wait for

legislature to pass it.

“It’s pretty much as we had envisioned and as we had planned for,”

said Paul Reed, assistant superintendent of business services for the

Newport-Mesa School District. “It’s bad, but we knew it was going to

be bad. Now we need to figure out what the specific programmatic

impacts are.”

The governor’s budget continues the state’s emphasis on class size

reduction, accountability and special education and will fund

Proposition 98, which guarantees minimum levels of school funding.

But schools will not go unscathed. They will be expected to make

about $2 billion in sacrifices.

Community colleges, which were expected to take the biggest hit,

were given some relief. The proposal to increase the fee per unit

from $11 to $26 was rejected and reduced to $18 per unit.

“This community college budget is halfway there,” said Erin Cohn,

director of public affairs for the Coast Community College District,

which includes Orange Coast College. “We’ll still have to cut about

$8 million out of our budget.

“Our board last summer saw this coming and they anticipated the

cuts,” Cohn said. “We’ve been basically planning our budget for a

worse-case scenario, so any additional S that we find ourselves with

will go back into the classrooms.”

Although higher education won’t have to adjust to additional cuts,

the University of California system will still face about $300

million in base budget cuts.