California educators knew that next year would be rough for K-12 schools and community colleges. But not this rough.

The Legislative Analyst’s Office’s eye-popping projection of a $25 billion state budget deficit over the next 18 months doesn’t include $5 billion in cuts that schools already will face next year because of declining state revenues, the end of one-time federal money, and other unreimbursed costs.

Solving the budget deficit will come on top of those cuts. That’s why next year could be the worst yet, even after three years of substantial reductions for schools. The only good news is that the 2011-12 budget should be rock bottom, after which revenues for schools will begin to climb slowly again. But the LAO is predicting that it won’t be until 2015-16 that the Proposition 98 minimum guarantee for K-12 schools and community colleges reaches the pre-recession 2007-08 level – with hardship and lost opportunities for a generation of schoolchildren in between. (See Rob Manwaring’s The Quick and the Ed to understand the context of California’s budget problem.)

The LAO’s $25.4 billion projection assumes the current year’s budget, which the Legislature passed only last month, will end $6 billion in the red. That’s not all that surprising, given the wink-and-a-nod revenue assumptions and cost savings built into the budget. The additional $19 billion includes the end of $8 billion in temporary personal income, vehicle, and sales taxes next year that voters passed in February 2009. Their expiration then will lower the Prop 98 minimum obligation to K-12 and community colleges by $2.2 billion, from $49.7 billion to $47.5 billion next year – a 4.4 percent cut. Cutting that money doesn’t help solve the $25 billion deficit; it’s built into the budget forecast.

The LAO assumes no funding next year of $3 billion in other baseline cost increases: $100 million for a slightly higher number of students, $900 million in higher costs of living, and $2 billion in an unreimbursed one-time shuffling of money.

The drop in Prop 98 obligation coincides with the end of federal stimulus money for schools and last year’s one-time $1.2 billion in “edujobs” dollars that President Obama and Congress funded. How districts spread out this money will determine how big a hole they’ll be facing. Smart districts divided the edujobs money between this year and next. But all will face some level of a “funding cliff.”

The $19 billion deficit for next year comprises more than 20 percent of the projected $84 billion deficit. Legislative Analyst Mac Taylor said it would take a combination of cuts and taxes to fill in that gap after years of improvised one-time fixes and deferrals. He expressed doubt whether K-12 schools and community colleges could be cut further to fix next year’s deficit.

But the LAO did say that the Legislature should consider reneging on funding $1.8 billion that it added to Gov. Schwarzenegger’s May revised budget. That money is to be deferred to next July, after the start of the next fiscal year, but cutting it would erase about a third of this year’s estimated budget deficit. And it wouldn’t make much difference anyway since “most districts have been cautious in increasing 2010-11 program support as a result of recent deferrals.”

Which is a diplomatic way of saying, Go ahead, legislators, and take it back, because most districts were smart enough not to trust you in the first place.

On Wednesday, Schwarzenegger called for an emergency session of the Legislature to deal with the immediate $6 billion problem.