Governor Gavin Newsom is facing backlash from several public advocacy groups after unveiling his revised 2024-2025 budget, which addresses a $45 billion deficit by making deep cuts to state operations and programs. Chief among his critics is the California Teachers Association, which claims Newsom’s cuts to K-12 education are unconstitutional and “will wreak havoc for years to come.”
The teachers union and the California School Boards Association both argue that the governor’s maneuver to avoid immediate $8.8 billion in cuts is not legal under Proposition 98 (which sets aside a minimum amount of funding for schools in the state budget), that sets a dangerous precedent for the future of public school financing and could devastate school district budgets for years to come.
In the 2022-2023 budget year, California gave its public schools $76 billion because they estimated the Prop 98 formula required it. Newsom’s administration says that because the state’s tax collections ended up being 25% less than what the state projected, it retroactively affects the $8.8 billion public school funding formula.
The problem is that the state can’t take that money back because the school districts have already spent it. Instead, Newsom is treating the money as a preemptive loan: spreading the costs across future school budgets by reducing state education spending in coming years. While this maneuver currently prevents layoffs and cuts to district budgets, the California Teachers Association estimates that this, along with a new government accounting measure that the union says is illegal, will effectively reduce public school spending by 12 over the next two years. billion dollars would decrease. .
“Prop 98, when it was passed, was intended to be a floor. And if you start performing maneuvers that suddenly say, ‘the floor isn’t really the floor,’ that means untold damage to teachers and students,” said teacher union president David Goldberg.
How schools in Sacramento will fare
For most schools, the vast majority of their funding comes from the state level. School districts across the state are keeping an eye on Newsom’s budget as they craft their budget proposals for next year.
Janea Marking, chief business and operations officer at Sacramento City Unified School District, said while the budget represents a loss of projected revenue, there is no risk of cuts to student programs. The district’s proposed budget will be presented at the next board meeting on June 6.
But teachers still fear the impact the shortage could have on their schools. Nikki Milevsky, president of the Sacramento City Teachers Association, worries that budget cuts could set back efforts to increase student success that were just gaining momentum in her district and in districts across the state. She said similar government cuts to education funding in the past usually result in laying off support staff.
“It would be devastating for schools if these types of cuts were to happen,” Milevsky said. “We are currently working very hard with our district to establish intervention programs for students, and this cut would undermine that terribly.”
In the Twin Rivers Unified School District, students are largely not meeting learning standards, and outcomes for Black, Latino, Indigenous, and/or socioeconomically disadvantaged students are even bleaker. That said, the district’s test scores have improved overall since 2015, but budget cuts could jeopardize efforts to close the racial achievement gap and get all students to the highest levels, said Rebecca LeDoux, president of the Twin Rivers United Educators.
LeDoux worries that Newsom’s budget maneuver could result in larger class sizes and fewer instructional aids, specialized teachers, counselors and psychologists on staff to help students get the individualized attention they need to succeed academically.
“Behind all these cuts are students, who are children who need extra attention and who may never reach their full potential because of these cuts,” says LeDoux. “The cost to the children, in my opinion, is truly immeasurable.”
LeDoux also worries about the effect the cuts could have on teachers in her district and on the industry as a whole. Amid a teacher shortage, factors such as poor benefits or wages that do not reflect the area’s rising cost of living will keep people from being attracted to the profession. LeDoux said the poor quality of facilities at Twin Rivers Unified has significantly reduced the number of people interested in teaching in the district.
The way forward
CTA launched an ad campaign earlier this month urging the public to pressure state leaders to stop the maneuver. The union hopes to work with state leaders to find a resolution before going down the path of litigation.
“We are open to any solution and talking about different ideas, but what we are not open to at all are gimmicks that will jeopardize years of gains in public school funding,” Goldberg said. “We will not accept a proposal to cut classroom funding today, and we will not accept a proposal to cut classroom funding in years to come.”
If a lawsuit is filed, it likely won’t be resolved until long after the cuts take effect, but Goldberg said it’s important to challenge unconstitutional moves by lawmakers and set a precedent that strengthens — not weakens — Prop 98 . The school board association has also threatened a lawsuit.
