Schools

'Alligator' Education Funding Has PUSD Seeing Red

School officials point to state funding shortfalls for their fiscal woes.

An education-funding graph used to only need one line: how much school districts would and should be paid. But over the past several years, a “should” funding line has accelerated upward, split from a sinking line charting how much actually flows from the state to local schools.

Poway Unified’s finance head calls it the “alligator chart,” perhaps a reflection not only of its look but what school officials say it symbolizes: an alarming education funding system eating away at the quality of students’ education.

The Poway Unified School District is facing an $18.7 million deficit next year, and officials are pointing to the widening gap between how much the state should send them per student—about $6,800—and what they are actually projected to get: just $5,313.

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State officials have repeatedly cut public education funding from its original targets as California has weathered the Great Recession, creating this gap between what is owed according to funding formulas and the dollars districts end up with.

A new funding mechanism proposed by Gov. Jerry Brown could shut the alligator’s mouth by 2020, bringing the would and should back in alignment, but officials aren’t counting on it.

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“I don’t believe it yet,” said Malliga Tholandi, PUSD’s associate superintendent for business support services, as she presented the district’s second interim budget report at Monday’s board meeting.

Brown’s proposed Local Control Funding Formula, or LCFF, would both gradually increase how much money districts receive and give them more spending flexibility. Currently, millions of dollars come with strings attached to specific programs.

But district officials probably won’t know until at least June whether state legislators will OK the plan, and are making budget projections based on present-day funding.

Key numbers from the presentation (attached):

  • 2012-13 Deficit: $15.8 million
    • To be absorbed by reserves/unappropriated funds ($55.1 million).
  • 2013-14 Deficit: $18.7 million
    • Officials are considering $3 million in cuts.
    • Full deficit can be filled from reserves ($39.3 million).
  • 2014-15 Deficit: $23.4 million
    • Projections include $17 million in cuts and $6.4 million taken from reserves/unappropriated funds ($20.5 million) to close the gap. 
  • Potential extra funding from LCFF: $4.2 million to $6.2 million.

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