May 14, 2013

Money? Money? What Money?

Governor Brown started the May Revision press conference with the statement that the State was only going to see a net $800 million over three years from the $4.5 billion surge in revenues during the first four months of 2013. After dampening down any expectations for program restorations or new programs, he went on to explain that schools and health care were the focus of the May Revision.  For schools, the May Revision has a number of changes that can be summed up in that there will be more one-time money in 2012-12 and less ongoing money in 2013-14. He made almost no major changes to his Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF).

The Legislature was not happy with the original proposals and the original budget document, but have very few options to living within the total dollar amount. The Governor was very clear that he would veto what he needed to veto in order to maintain a prudent budget.

I continue to believe the LCFF will not be implemented as proposed and that the Legislature will use an alternative for 2013-14 that has some of the LCFF provisions. There does not appear to be any changes in the proposed base grant levels or in the supplemental and concentration grants.

There are some adjustments for small school districts to the Proposition 39 allocation proposal, but it remains a per average daily attendance allocation for almost all districts.

~Dave Walrath