Update: The Sacramento Bee has a list of Brown’s proposed cuts. The newspaper says Brown would provide the Prop. 98 minimum guarantee for K-12 school funding, as long as a package of tax increases succeeds on the June ballot. If the tax measures fail, Prop. 98 would be suspended. Honestly, Prop. 98 is so complex I am not sure whether even the minimum guarantee is a good thing for schools.
Tomorrow, Gov. Brown will release his budget proposal for the fiscal year beginning July 1. If the signals from the administration are to be believed, this will be a “shock and awe” budget that will contain drastic cuts to everything from schools to social services. Once Californians get a look at the depth of the cuts, the thinking in Sacramento goes, voters may be sufficiently softened up to consider tax increases.
The bad thing for school districts, however, is that we will have to prepare our 2011-12 budgets according to the proposal the Governor makes tomorrow. So things are going to look exceedingly drastic until there are reasonable expectations for new state revenues.
Locally, the Board will elect a leadership team (President and Vice President) for 2011 at Tuesday’s meeting.
Rachel Norton 
Hi Rachel –
It is really important to point out that though the media is claiming that K-12 has been spared – we (parents of k-12) are actually caught in a horrible game of chicken. We are most certainly loosing the federal stimulus dollars, so our budgets will be lowered accordingly AND, most importantly, if the legislature blocks the potential revenue measure from getting to the ballot (it needs 2/3 to get on) and the voters don’t approve the ballot initiative – our schools will receive at LEAST a $2 billion haircut. This could amount to approx $600 less per student on average.
Lots to keep an eye on right now.
Mac Taylor at the LAO pointed out a few months ago that 98, even when not suspended, has turned into a ceiling for school funding. Since it was originally intended as a minimum funding scheme, that’s a problem. Nor do I think that rising state revenues are ever going to correct the assumption.