CSBA: Vote for both tax plans
Battle between 'purists and pragmatists'
The state PTA backs the tax initiative financed by civil rights attorney Molly Munger; the California Teachers Association and the Association of California School Administrators endorsed the governor’s initiative. This week, the California School Boards Association decided to support both.
On Sunday, at the urging of CSBA’s board of directors, school board members in the Delegate Assembly voted 129-79 to encourage their constituents to vote for both tax proposals that will appear on the November ballot. They did so after an hour-and-a-half debate and after defeating, by voice vote, an amendment calling for CSBA to support only Munger’s “Our Children, Our Future” initiative. There was no motion to support only “The Schools and Local Public Protection Act of 2012,” which Gov. Jerry Brown and the California Federation of Teachers are sponsoring.
“We are facing a nuclear winter for funding for public education,” said CSBA Vice President Josephine Lucey, a school board member from Cupertino. “Districts cannot absorb more cuts and provide a decent education.” Delegates decided it was smartest to back both initiatives, Lucey said, after concluding, “Why should we be fodder for a fight” between the two tax campaigns or the anti-tax Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, which would play up its opposition to one of the tax plans.
Brown’s tax plan was favored by a slight majority, 54 percent, in a poll last month by the Public Policy Institute of California, while Munger’s drew only 40 percent support in that voter survey. But Munger’s plan would provide substantially more money for K-12 schools, so it came down to a difference between “the purists and the pragmatists,” said Frank Biehl, president of the East Side Union High School District school board and a delegate from Santa Clara County. “One side said Munger’s would bring more money for a longer time with more flexibility. The other side said, ‘It’s not going to pass so what difference doe it make?’”
Biehl, who plans to vote for both, said another factor was that the CSBA didn’t want to cut off dialogue with Brown, who has met with the board of directors and responded to their concerns, such as changing his plan for a weighted student formula.
Both initiatives are expected to qualify for the ballot. Brown’s tax plan would raise between $6.5 billion and $9 billion by raising the sales tax ¼ percent for four years and the personal income tax between 1 and 3 percent for seven years on those earning more than $250,000. But most of the money would go toward shoring up the General Fund, with $2.9 billion going toward Proposition 98 next year; Brown would commit that to repay part of $9 billion in deferrals, late payments to school districts.
Munger’s initiative would raise $5 billion in 2012-13 and then $10 billion for 11 years by raising the state’s progressive personal income tax less than a half-percent for lowest earners up to 2.2 percent for those earning more than $2.5 million. In the first three years, her plan would pay off $3 billion in state bonds, freeing up money for the General Fund, with the rest going toward K-12 schools and early childhood education. After that, all of the money would go directly to schools, on a per-student basis, and early childhood programs.
If, against the odds, Munger’s initiative won and the governor’s lost, the Legislature could undermine it by separately manipulating the General Fund to decrease Proposition 98 funding for education. Brown and lawmakers have become adept at that. There would be disputes if both initiatives passed. The one with the highest vote total would determine which clauses applied in areas of overlap (the rates on the personal income tax); the courts would likely be called on to sort through other issues.
In its press release on Sunday’s vote, CSBA made a strenuous case for more school funding while expressing little enthusiasm for Brown’s initiative. Quoting CSBA Executive Director Vernon Billy, it said, “CSBA opted for the dual endorsement because schools desperately need funding.” Yet, he and the CSBA leadership want to make it clear to the public that the governor’s initiative does not provide new funding for schools. Instead, it bolsters the General Fund with new revenue.
“‘Under the governor’s plan, schools would get back some of the billions of dollars that were redirected away from them and used to shore up the state’s funding gap in the last budgetary cycle. The governor’s initiative only restores some of the funds already owed to schools,’” Billy said.
Munger’s plan has text that only allows hers to apply if both pass and hers get more votes. One potential problem with that scenario is that the gov’s realignment portion of his initiative would still move forward, albeit without funding.
Munger’s plan also appears to hold parents more accountable by making the ADA measure for receiving her funds more strict. (see section 5). That should be welcome news for those looking for more community involvement and accountability. Perhaps not such good news for those who believe attendance is not so easy to improve.
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Unfortunately the Munger initiative does nothing to help with Community College funding. All the money is directed to K-12, without flexibility to address the needs of “grades 13 and 14.”
Governor Brown’s measure is not perfect but it can be shared with all aspects of the K-14 system.
CSU and UC are funded on a semi-independent basis, but the Community College system still depends on annual K-14 budget allocations. Nothing wrong with K-12 getting more money, but Ms. Munger’s K-12 only provision is a poison pill that leaves out the most underfunded portion of the entire public Kindergarten-through-post-graduate system.
Governor Brown’s proposal will provide equitable relief for K-12 and Community Colleges because the money goes to the General Fund. If the Munger bill applied to all, then great. But, as is, it blocks extra funding from supporting the colleges because, if passed with more votes, it would supercede the Governor’s proposal.
- Chris Stampolis
Trustee, West Valley-Mission Community College District
State Board Member, California Community College Trustees (CCCT)
408-390-4748 * stampolis@aol.com
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Good points, Chris.
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All the governor offers are more gimmicks and not nearly enough funding for our students. Paying back money taken away from our schools is not “giving money” t o our schools. And he doesn’t even plan to repay all of it.
CA is 47th in the state in what we spend per pupil. CA has the highest student to teacher, student to counselor and student to administrator ratios — in the nation. We’ve lost art, music, drama, counselors, school nurses, librarians, libraries, computer labs, after school programs, athletics. The past four years have been a bloodbath in staff and programs. It’s time to actually fund our students in an amount that can cover what the state has set as their standards. Its time to invest in our students, rather than chip away at our schools, year after year after year. No more cuts. No more deferrals. No more gimmicks.
The governor is holding our students hostage, so he can pass a tax initiative that will not have a significant positive impact on our schools. That’s pretty low if you ask me. Our schools, which get 40% of the budget, will absorb 90% of the cuts if the governor’s initiative doesn’t pass. This is what is called blackmail.
The PTA/Molly Munger initiative is the only initiative that will start to restore our schools. Many of our school districts are hanging by a thread and the governor’s siphoning away more money last year due to his realignment plan, his initiative that only pays money that has already been taken from schools (maybe) and now his proposed Weighted Student Formula will further damage school districts that are already compromised. PTAs and educational foundations can not fill in the huge gap that has been created. Many districts don’t even have the resources for PTA fundraising and educational foundations — and so the gap widens even further for some -creating varying degrees of inequity, again – in an overall compromised system.
The PTA/Molly Munger, Our Children, Our Future initiative relies on a broad based, sliding scale tax, after deductions. It sends money directly to our schools, NOT the Sacramento black hole! It mandates parent input into how the money is spent and mandates strict accountability. The initiative also makes it a felony to misuse the funds. Got it Gov.? ourchildrenourfuture2012.com
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Voting yes on both tax measures seems like the way to go: more money will go directly to our staggering schools and more money will go into the depleted general fund. I hope all voters will embrace this notion. In response, the Governor needs to rein in the Legislature’s profligate ways: people are sick of the wasteful spending and have come to distrust their government — a dangerous artifact of the struggle to stay afloat.
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Since y’all advocating for the Munger initiative say this over and over, I’ll keep asking this question over and over:
“CA has the highest student to teacher, student to counselor and student to administrator ratios — in the nation.”
And yet.. the Munger initiative specifically prohibits the use of the money raised for administrators. Or I should say, allows you to spend 1% on new administrators, which means that you get one for every 99 *new* teachers you hire with the money. That’s not going to allow schools to fix that ratio, even in cases where the parents and local people on the ground all agree that what they want most is a new counselor. That’s a real frustration for me, that it assumes that every district kept a fat wad of administration and laid off teachers, when in fact many districts have snuck by with clever but unsustainable patches like sharing principals across school sites and spreading people very thin. If you want to advocate for local control, it’s a shame it wasn’t truly given.
I will vote for both. Either will be better than what we have now. That doesn’t mean I’m 100% happy with either.
@Frances, both will not be implemented if they both pass – where two similar measures on the same ballot conflict, the higher vote-getter wins.
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As Chris mentions, the need at the community colleges is also great, and is also a part of K-12, as resources can be shared between high schools and colleges, especially in less populated areas. Partnerships to get college credit for kids at schools without an AP program or to share CTE initiatives or various facilities (labs and workshops) have been very beneficial.
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During the first 4 years of the PTA-Munger initiative, there is provided a reimbursement to the state’s general fund of about $3 billion each year for the payment of bond interest and debt to the General Fund (a total of over $12 billion). This money would be available for non-98 expenditure OR if the Legislature decided to do so, it could spend some of it on Community Colleges. Certainly Community College advocates should make the case that some of this $3 billion per year should be spent on them. I’m sure they could find a way if they wanted to.
Under the Governor’s proposal, there is no guarantee where the money will go either if you consider the mechanics of his initiative and the legislative process.
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It is my impression that the reason munger’s plan is called our children, our future is that she is trying to make an investment in the future, not in trying to address the failures of the past. For example, 15% of her education-specific funds would go toward head-start-like and pre-k programs. She is also trying to get as much money into the classroom or programs as possible. not only did she prohibit the use of more than 1% for admin costs, but she prohibited using the funds for increasing a bargaining unit’s salary scales. In addition, she is probably going to penalize upper grade schools (by making funding disproportionately dependent on attendance). From that standpoint it seems consistent that she would not target community colleges. As far as I’m concerned, a rejection of brown’s plan and passing of mungers would not be intended to de-prioritize community colleges or district administration, rather it would be a statement to the governor that his solution, which is going to hurt kids the most, is not acceptable. That we will focus on funding the classrooms while he the leg figure out how to put the education system in order. Virtually ever budget cut I’ve ever seen has come at the expense of the classroom, the students and their programs. Pay cuts have come in the form of furloughs, which simply means reduced services to children and no one else. Reduction in costs have come in the form of staffing reductions, with associated program reductions or elimination. Those hurt nobody but kids. We have no more libraries in our schools (except for those who can raise money to hire a library coordinator (no longer an actual librarian)). We are losing whats left of music this year. We have arts only in the schools the parents can raise money to support it. Parents have to help out on the playground and in the cafeteria because there is not enough staff to watch the kids. Parents buy the supplies that the teachers dont pay for themselves. I found out the other day that our Kinder teacher pays for her PD out of her own pocket because she thinks its valuable and the district cant fund it.
And I still dont understand why its acceptable for brown to have manufactured the lack of education funding by moving funds to everything but education, then asking the voters to cover that part with tax increases. Is our response to that going to sheepishly be ‘thank you’ as we hand over our wallets? The truth seems to be that brown’s initiative will not help education at all, whether you include community colleges or not. Perhaps no irony that the funds raised by munger’s plan will almost cover the cuts that brown is threatening? Perhaps he should be sent back to the drawing board to come up with a real plan?
And btw, there is no harm in voting for both, unless they both pass and munger’s gets more votes. It would be interesting to hear from the gov how he plans on funding realignment in that case..
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So I’m surprised no-one has bitten on my two comments yet.. perhaps there is disagreement on my interpretation? Or no one has bothered to read it..?
Section 5 will disallow any child who misses one day in a month from being counted as an ADA for that entire month. A child who misses one day every month of the school year can still have a 94% attendance rate, but will count as 0 ADA for the purposes of OCOF funding. Note that all of OCOF k-12 allocations are ADA-based, though the multiplier for each ADA will change depending on grade level and program participation. Feel free to offer an alternative interpretation.
Although Brown’s initiative is much more difficult to read, it seems to be the case that if both measures pass, but molly’s gets more, brown’s taxation mechanism will be nullified, but his extension of realignment legislation will still move forward. It also seems to be saying if there is no funding for that realignment, it will be taken from the general fund. Again, alternative interpretations are welcome..
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@navigio, I’m having trouble understanding where your interpretation of the one-day a month missed day = 0 ADA.
Text pasted here:
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SEC. 46305. Each elementary, high school, and unified school district, and each independent charter school, county office of education and state-run school, shall report to the Superintendent of Public Instruction on forms prepared by the Department of Education in addition to all other attendance data as required, the active enrollment as of the third Wednesday of each school month and the actual attendance on the third Wednesday of each school month; except that if such day is a school holiday, the active enrollment and actual attendance of the first immediate preceding schoolday shall be reported. “Active enrollment” on a day a count is taken means the pupils in enrollment in the regular schooldays of the district on the first day of the school year on which the schools were in session, plus all later enrollees, minus all pupils who have not been in attendance for at least one day between the first day of the school year or the first schoolday immediately following the next preceding day for which a count was taken pursuant to this section, whichever is later, and the day the count is being taken, inclusive. The Superintendent of Public Instruction may, as necessary, modify the collection dates or methodologies in order to reduce any local agency’s administrative duties in the implementation of this section.
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You may well be right, because that text is nearly nonsensical.
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I think, navigio, I am reading it oppositely to you.. that is, that it is eliminating ADA for kids enrolled but who did not attend any days during the last month. But then I wonder why they would need to state that. Honestly, it’s a tangle of unnecessarily messy language.
For people who wonder… I know that it’s frustratingly common for parents to pull their kids – usually their underperforming kids – for a month or 6 weeks to go off for vacation to visit extended family; sometimes they’ll just take all the time between Thanksgiving and New Years. I’d guess it’s meant not to count those kids… but those kids already aren’t counted under the model where schools are only paid for the kids who show up each day. I’m also at a loss as to how the school keeps that from happening.
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Hi El.
Current ed code reads the same up until what follows the word ‘minus’. The current ed code has this there:
“minus all withdrawals since that day.”
OCOF has replaced that with:
“minus all pupils who have not been in attendance for at least one day between the first day of the school year or the first schoolday immediately following the next preceding day for which a count was taken pursuant to this section, whichever is later, and the day the count is being taken, inclusive. The Superintendent of Public Instruction may, as necessary, modify the collection dates or methodologies in order to reduce any local agency’s administrative duties in the implementation of this section.”
Basically what it is saying is that there is snapshot taken every third wed (existing text) and that snapshot consists of all kids who were enrolled since the beginning of the year (if it was the first snapshot) or since the last snapshot (if it is a subsequent one) and from that we subtract any kids who weren’t there for at least one day during that period. Normally it would have said to subtract all kids who had withdrawn, which seems obviously to mean not to count kids who were no longer in the school (which makes sense). I’ve read it about 200 times and am having a hard time getting any alternate interpretation, but maybe thats just me. I have asked the OCOF people but have yet to get a response on this particular issue (interestingly).
Also, note that this text was added as well (to the first sentence):
“, and each independent charter school, county office of education and state-run school,”
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I am actually getting pretty confused by some aspects of both initiatives! How is the everyday parent/voter to understand the nuances (which seem really important) of the two, and then make a decision to vote for none, for one, or both? I need a nice comparison chart – but then the Prop 98 money can still be slid in one direction, and a last minute Bill (remember AB 114) can be approved at the 11th hour.
I agree that one way or another it is the K-12 children who are being most affected by decision-makers.
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The munger initiative is actually fairly easy to understand since almost everything it does is done ‘outside the system’. You are right that it cant say what the legislature or governor would do in response. The governor’s initiative, on the other hand, is pretty darn complex, and requires a familiarity with ed code and the current state law to even read.
To be honest, one of the real problems with our initiative process is that voters cannot or will not seek to understand what they are voting into law. As long as we have that process, we need to make sure these initiatives are explained to the greatest extent possible.
I’ve already started writing up an overview of the munger initiative. If I ever finish that, I’ll try to post it somewhere for people to read. I would also like to do the same for the gov’s, but there are only 6 months left till the election.. ;-)
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@navigio, the more I look at it, the more I think that text is entirely ambiguous!
from that we subtract any kids who weren’t there for at least one day during that period
so “kids who weren’t there for at least one day” can mean either:
- kids who missed one day or more
- kids who did not attend any days during that period.
I have no idea why they would change the existing text to this. Seriously, this is just garbledygook with no obvious intent or obvious improvement for any particular goal. And I can find no reason to choose one interpretation over the other based on the text.
Sigh. Don’t people who submit initiatives have editors?
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So I’m thinking that the point of that number is to be the denominator in a fraction between actual attendance and total possible attendance. However you interpret the OCOF “active enrollment” number, it will be less than currently calculated, which would make your percentage higher. If you use @navigio’s interpretation, one imagines it would be possible for attendance to exceed 100%. Awesome! We Is Doing Gr8!
Where else does “active enrollment” come into play?
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Ok, so I did a bit more research on this and found a bill from 2005 (AB1377–not sure whether it ever became law) that clearly defines active enrollment as excluding any child that was enrolled but never showed up (and uses the language did not attend at least one day). So it seems likely that munger is attempting to align this ed code section with that same concept (el’s second option). Im still confused about the wording, but given the clarity of the other bill, I think its probably clear what she was intending.
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