Stop, Drop and Roll

24 March 2008 | AUSD | John Knox White

Last week, on Lauren Do’s site, AUSD Boardmember Mike McMahon broke his customary “just the facts” veneer to reiterate a point he had made at a recent board meeting:

So now we have a $4 million parcel tax on the ballot to replace the projected $4 million reduction in State funding. Therefore in my opinion any improvements in State funding should be placed in a Rainy Day fund so that by 2011, the community can decide on a local parcel tax that funds additional levels of service while the State funds core educational services. Then whenever the State mismanages its budget we can use the Rainy Day fund to wait out the State.

I think the point is a good one. I understand not locking down each and every dollar of the proposed parcel to pay for a specific item. Budgets aren’t that stable, locking it down exactly could lead to some programs having “protected” status why other, core programs, are slashed. But….this parcel tax is a bit different. It’s been put together as an emergency stop gap measure to fend off massive cuts in the state’s funding.

Because of the Byzantine regulations surrounding school financing, schools have to pass a balanced budget BEFORE the state votes on the final funding for the district. In years past, this hasn’t been a problem, because Prop 98 guaranteed a minimum level of funding (not the upcoming terrible eminent domain/rent control proposition, the good, school funding proposition that “protected” funding for schools).

So here’s the conundrum, and really it’s not a big one given the disaster that school financing is becoming, what happens if the voters pass the parcel tax AND the state reinstates its required funding? Of course, given the fiscal starvation that the district has been going through, one might just say “oh happy day, we accidentally have more money than we thought” and go on and reinstate programs that have been cut over the last 7 years.

But back to the “but,” I have to agree with Boardmember McMahon, given the pitch for this parcel tax, “it’s an extraordinary circumstance, it’s an emergency” then it makes sens to say that if, by some miracle, the state reinstates money in July or August, that the Parcel Tax money gets set aside in a rainy day fund that collects interest and protects the district from future budget fiascoes like the one we are currently facing.

It’s an issue the board will need to deal with in the coming weeks.

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