Republican Legislators Propose $5B More in Education Cuts
The Assembly on September 3 began vetting a new proposal from legislative Republicans that would make further reductions in education – a total of $5 billion.
CTA and Education Coalition representatives are working hard to defeat the plan and to gain approval of a budget that would include the major elements of an earlier spending plan approved by a two-house conference committee. Virtually all of the currently circulating plans – including the new Republican proposal, the governor’s newly revised “compromise” and the Senate Budget Proposal – would include devastating cuts to education and would widely expand the governor’s power to make additional cuts in the state budget during any given year. Overall, these proposals:
- Give the governor the power to make mid-year budget cuts to local schools and eliminate the cost-of-living-increases for education that are currently required by state law. These provisions would make it impossible for local schools to function. Schools and colleges could not meet the demands of students, cover increased costs, or provide stable employee salaries. That's anti-student and anti-public education.
- Cut billions of dollars from education. California already ranks 46th in the nation in per-pupil funding. These proposals would keep California schools at the bottom.
- Fail to provide ongoing revenues to prevent deeper cuts to schools and colleges. Some of the plans include more borrowing, and several include a temporary sales tax increase. When the temporary sales tax goes away, California would again fall $4-6 billion into debt. The borrowing would not solve the problems, either.
- Would require a change to the Proposition 98 guarantee that would cost schools $3.3 billion.
CTA Asks You to Call Your Legislators NOW!
Call the "Cuts Hurt Hotline" at 1-888-268-4334. Follow the prompts to make two calls – one to your state Senator and the other to your state Assembly Member. Tell your lawmakers:
- Borrowing is the wrong approach to fixing our state’s budget mess. CTA thoroughly rejects any proposal to solve the current budget impasse through borrowing alone because it hurts our schools and students and threatens the future of California. Borrowing got us in this budget debacle and would only worsen our state’s deficit and shortchange our students by billions of dollars now and in the future.
- The Republican proposal would destroy the Prop. 98 minimum school funding guarantee and require a constitutional change. In fact, this change would mean that $3 billion in cuts would never be repaid to California’s schools and students. California already ranks 46th in per-pupil spending. This plan would lock California’s public education system into that dismal spending level forever.
- Voters strongly reaffirmed their support for the minimum funding law in 2005, by rejecting a measure (Prop. 76) that included similar provisions to lock in terribly inadequate funding levels for our schools.
- California needs a real budget solution that prevents deeper cuts to schools and students.
- Our students and schools need real state budget solutions, not gridlock. Our students didn’t create this budget crisis, and their futures shouldn’t be sacrificed to solve it. It’s time to take a balanced approach to solving the state’s budget crisis by supporting the original Conference Committee Budget Package!
Remember to tell lawmakers how cuts are hurting your students – tell your stories! Use CTA’s “Cuts Hurt” Hotline – 1-888-268-4334.
For more information or to give us feedback on your lawmakers’ responses, write summeradvocates@cta.org.