K thru 12 Education
Proposed Budget Balancing Reductions

Despite the fiscal challenge facing California, the K-12 education budget preserves funding for all core instructional programs, albeit at a slightly lower level, reflecting a 1.3 percent reduction in total funding compared to funding in 2007-08. The Governor's Budget approach thus spreads the impact over as many programs as possible to minimize the impact on each, while preserving as much funding as possible for classroom instruction.

  • Total budget-balancing reductions for K-12 Education programs amount to $4.4 billion in 2008-09. These reductions assume necessary statutory changes will be enacted by July 1, 2008.
  • No major programs were exempted from the reductions. The only items not proposed for reduction were funding for the State Teachers' Retirement System, debt service, lease payments securing lease revenue bonds and mandate deferrals.

    • SCHOOL REVENUE LIMIT APPORTIONMENTS
     K-12 revenue limits provide the primary form of general purpose funding assistance to our public schools. These funds are discretionary and typically cover the cost of teacher and administrator salaries. Funding is distributed to schools based on average daily attendance.

    The average revenue limit per pupil in the current year is estimated to be $5,997 per ADA. A school district's revenue limit is funded from two sources, local property taxes and State General Fund. Local property taxes are allocated first and, if insufficient to fully fund a school's revenue limit apportionment, state General Funds pay the difference.

    When State General Fund is insufficient to fully fund revenue limits statewide, a deficit factor is created to reduce funding to all schools by the same percentage. The deficit factor keeps track of reductions to school revenue limits which will be restored when sufficient funding is available in the future.

  • The major reductions are described below:
    • $2.6 billion in 2008-09 for school district and county office of education revenue limit apportionments. This will eliminate the 4.94 percent COLA and reduce existing revenue limit levels, thereby creating a 6.99 percent deficit factor.
    • $357.9 million in 2008-09 for Special Education. No COLA will be provided and existing state funding for local schools' special education costs will be reduced. Schools may have to backfill most of this reduction as the program is federally mandated.
    • $198.9 million in 2008-09 for Child Development programs. No COLA or growth will be provided for this program and, after accounting for normal program savings, approximately 8,000 existing slots will be reduced. Normal attrition rates in these programs should reduce the likelihood of a currently enrolled child losing their slot.
    • $59.6 million in 2008-09 for Before and Afterschool Programs. The Administration will propose a ballot initiative to amend Proposition 49 to achieve these savings. The impact of this reduction would be minimal because a number of recent grant recipients have not implemented the program or have not achieved the enrollment levels initially anticipated.
    • $14.2 million in 2008-09 for Child Nutrition Programs. This reduction will cut the free and reduced price meal reimbursement rate by approximately $0.02. However, the program received a $0.06 per meal augmentation in 2007-08.
    • $1,095.7 million in 2008-09 for other K-12 categorical programs. COLA adjustments will not be provided and proportional funding rate reductions will be applied to programs such as Class Size Reduction, the Charter School Categorical Block Grant, Instructional Materials, Supplemental Instruction, Home-to-School Transportation, Supplemental School Counseling and various Career Technical Education programs.
    • $5.6 million in 2008-09 for Department of Education administration and program support. The Superintendent of Public Instruction will have discretion to allocate this reduction.
    • $9.2 million in 2008-09 for the Department of Education State Special Schools. This reduction is unallocated to provide maximum flexibility to the Superintendent and the State Special Schools.
    • $5.1 million in 2008-09 for the California State Library. This will reduce state support to local libraries and reduce state reimbursement of the costs for inter and intra-library book loan programs.
  • In addition to the reductions above, the Administration proposes to change the K-14 program COLA factor from the State and Local Implicit Deflator to the Consumer Price Index for Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W). This will more appropriately reflect inflation for educational programs as the vast majority of educational expenditures are for wages and salaries, and the recent fluctuations in the State and Local Implicit Deflator do not appear to be related to costs which significantly affect schools. This will reduce the COLA from 4.94 percent to 3.65 percent. The savings that will result from this proposal are subsumed in the 10 percent reductions identified above.
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CHAPTER HIGHLIGHTS for K thru 12 Education Back to Top

 K-12 School Spending and Attendance
 Proposition 98 Guarantee
 California State Teachers' Retirement System
 Proposed Workload Budget
image of black pointing arrowProposed Budget Balancing Reductions
 Other Special Session Issues
 Program Enhancements and Other Budget Adjustments
PRINTABLE BUDGET DOCUMENTS Back to Top
Budget Summary - K thru 12 Education (pdf * - 329K) -
Provides this entire K thru 12 Education Chapter in pdf format.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION Back to Top
Proposed Budget Detail - K thru 12 Education
Displays Proposed Budget Detail information for K thru 12 Education.