The Good Ol’ Switch-a-Roo

Lets take another minute to process the recent statewide educational budget changes initiated last month. Initially, when the 2008-2009 proposed budget surfaced in May, the Governator announced a 4.6 billion drop in educational funding. After about 20,000 teacher pink slips were dished out, the state erupted in a state of anger and hysteria. Teachers and parents were outraged at the blow to education, while big businesses received even grander tax breaks (allowing them to file taxes for pervious years, to help get them with returns and such). While the enacted budget was due in July, it didn’t surface until mid September, more than 85 days late. School systems, whose school year technically starts in the summer, had to postpone any major financial allocations until the proposal went through.

There is some good news. When the final budget was enacted, the 4 billion drop changed to a 1.5 billion dollar raise in educational funding since last year. This in part was initiated by an act that held corporations financially responsible for under-reporting on their taxes (a twenty percent increase).

It may not be what it seems. Some sources note: although the state budget for education increased, other resources won’t be available, which is actually going to decrease the overall funding in California by almost 2 billion. Shucks. After doing some heavy research, I discovered one of the culprits, the California State Lottery. Last year education received 37 percent of the revenue for the lottery, totaling in about 1.1 billion. No longer.

Just taking the lottery situation into consideration, the budget “increase” is taken to zero, not even including inflation, a heavy hitter this year. Let’s just say we’ve been victim to the good old switch-a-roo. Not to mention California is cutting budgets for tons of other educational programs including AIDS/HIV education and school nutrition. Where is the art? Let’s just say it’s a sad day.

For a full budget breakdown check out the awesome PDF available at: http://www.ebudget.ca.gov/Enacted/StateAgencyBudgets/6010/agency.html