The Ominous Beat of Looming Budget Blues

Public school officials throughout the state are bracing for impact this week after recent estimates indicate the state’s tax revenue is, once again, on the decline and looking to fall well short of Governor Jerry Brown’s hopes and expectations. Should the predicted $3.7 billion shortfall — which was forecast by the state’s Legislative Analyst Office late last week — come to pass, then more than $1 billion of automatically triggered cuts will likely be levied on public schools throughout the state sometime at the start of 2012, a virtual doomsday scenario for the already heavily cut public education sector.

While the cuts, at least at the moment, are not guaranteed, they are technically built into the state’s adopted $88.5 billion budget. The State Department of Finance must make a similar damning conclusion with its economic forecast due on December 15 for the cuts to be kicked into effect, and even then, there is a chance legislators could spit the bit and try a late-hour maneuver to spread the pain around. In short, if 2011-12 tax revenues don’t equal the predictions of the budget, then two tiers of corresponding cuts will be enforced, which include $1.1 billion for K-12 institutions and $100 million in reductions for the budgets of University of California and California State University schools, likely resulting in tuition hikes and widespread shortenings of the school year.

Here in Santa Barbara, the news was met with cautious hand-wringing by school district officials. A hard-fought negotiation with the district’s teachers union this past spring, which anticipated the likelihood of these late-in-the-game cuts and thusly put in place an agreement for a maximum of 10 furlough days based on the actual severity of the reductions, has the Santa Barbara Unified School District in an enviable position. “We are certainly in a much better spot than districts that don’t have that negotiated yet,” explained School Boardmember Kate Parker this week.