State: Ed groups misinformed feds
The Schwarzenegger administration has responded, in a letter to federal officials, to education groups’ charges that the state violated rules for qualifying for remaining stimulus money from the feds. Herb Schultz, the governor’s overseer of stimulus dollars, made it clear in an accompanying statement that he was peeved that advocates would have the audacity to “try to stand in the way of securing nearly a half a billion dollars in critical funding for our education system during these difficult economic times.” And, or course, he denied anything improper.
The education groups say it’s the Schwarzenegger administration that is standing in the way of hundreds of millions of dollars due schools under the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund. They wrote the U.S. Department of Education that the governor’s proposed and past budgets shorted K-12 schools money in violation of the requirement that states maintain levels of education spending as a prerequisite for receiving billions of dollars. They said that Schwarzenegger had used accounting tricks to make it look like the state was in compliance, when it actually would have to increase K-12 spending by at least $600 million. The groups included the Education Coalition (school boards association, CTA and the administrators’ association) and a coalition of organizations led by Public Advocates.
The arguments center on accounting rules: how Schwarzenegger handled repayment of past Proposition 98 obligations and whether it improperly deferred money for low-achieving schools under QEIA (Quality Education Investment Act), which was created through a court settlement with the California Teachers Assn. Schultz said the state handled it properly and accused that the organizations of deliberately misinforming the feds.
The organizations also charged that the governor’s proposed gas-tax swap, replacing the sales tax on gasoline with an excise tax, was a deliberate effort to lower the state’s spending obligation under Prop 98. Schultz’ letter doesn’t address that issue.
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SVEF is the education foundation advocating for the needs of school districts across Silicon Valley. SVEF seeks to improve public education through establishing partnerships with the private sector and the education community ..
So it is fair to say that Mr. Schultz’ response on the fee/tax issue is verbiage? I had a hard time finding a clear response other than Mr. Schultz’ anger at districts and educational agencies for daring to doubt the state’s honesty and benevolence.
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I guess this is what it means for California to be ungovernable. I read the letter requesting information from Mr. Schultz and his response. Best I can tell he seems to be following the letter of the law. But the spirit of the law seems to have been subverted. Although the creativity required to make it everything legal seems to have depended on a lucky decision about how to handle prop 98 funding settlement. Doesn’t make a great case for “following” laws in California.
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The battle is over the governor applying to waive federal requirements that the state maintain support for schools, or at least not cut schools disproportionately, while taking federal stimulus dollars. The fact is that K-12 schools have been cut disproportionately (they are 40% of the budget but represent 54% of the cuts so far). To make matters worse, the governor is using bait and switch tactics by shifting money between fiscal years and reducing the size of the state general fund to make it look like K-12 funding levels are being maintained. It’s amazing that Mr. Schultz is peeved that the Education Coalition would stand in the way of getting $500 million in one-time federal money at the expense of an additional ongoing cut of $2.4 billion at the state level. Even a child could run those numbers and figure out what’s best for schools in California.
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