Coalition calls for budget adoption

Coral Wilson

An education coalition is pushing for legislators to adopt the state

budget on time for once.

Educators, parents and school employees who make up the Orange

County Good News Coalition say are not thrilled with the recent

budget proposal, but delaying the decision will only make matters

worse.

“We’d like it to be better, but we don’t want it to get any

worse,” said Shirley Carey, president of the Huntington Beach city

board of education.

The coalition, which was originally formed in 1993 becomes

energized in times of crisis, Carey said. In February, budget

problems demanded efforts from the group to resurge once again. The

group held a rally and press conference at Sowers Middle School in

Huntington Beach Monday in an effort to gain support.

The budget crisis is affecting many state programs but decisions

regarding education will have the greatest long-range implications,

said Lloyd Porter, who sits on the California Teachers Assn. board of

directors. While freeways can wait, children can’t, Porter said.

“We can’t say, let’s wait two years and put off teaching

second-graders to read,” he said.

The state constitution requires that schools receive their budgets

by July 1 but legislators rarely meet this deadline, he said. This

year, a prompt decision is especially critical because if the state

waits too long, there won’t be enough money left to borrow, he said.

Schools are handicapped from making progress on a local level,

said Carol Jones, area director for the California School Employees

Assn., adding that political disagreements have resulted in

widespread chaos.

“These kids aren’t Republican or Democrats or Independent,” Jones

said. “They need a group of people to work together for kids.”

People can help by putting pressure on their elected

representatives, Carey said, suggesting starting with moderate

Republican legislators who have shown support for education in the

past such as Surf City’s Assemblyman Tom Harman.

Huntington Beach schools are suffering the effects of lay-offs,

increased class size and cuts to core programs. Teachers are

challenged to do their best with what is left, said Paul Morrow,

principal of Sowers Middle School.

“We’re finding ourselves at a loss of where do we go from here?”

he said.

The children are more important than any other state issue, Morrow

said, and local schools can’t move forward with what they have until

decisions have been finalized at the state level.

“A good or a bad budget, a budget needs to be passed on time,”

Jones said.

* CORAL WILSON is a news assistant who covers education. She can

be reached at (714) 965-7177 or by e-mail at

[email protected].