June 15—The California State Assembly Speaker, John Perez, has released his “California Jobs Budget” as an alternative to the governor’s slash-and-burn May Revise.  The Assembly budget proposal is a more responsible approach to dealing with the state budget deficit, which currently stands at approximately $18 billion.  It would uphold the Prop 98 guarantee of base funding for public education in K-12 and community colleges, which the governor in his May Revise proposes to cut by an additional $4.5 billion on top of the $17 billion lost over the past two years. 

Each day brings more bad news about public education in California, once the world’s leading edge public education system. Thousands of teachers and school support staff have been laid off, with more layoffs on the way. As a result, over half of the state’s K-12 districts have increased their class sizes.  Purchase of current instructional materials has been put on a back burner, and already inadequate numbers of school nurses, janitors, librarians, counselors, and art and music teachers have been reduced further. Maintenance has been deferred, and summer school shortened or eliminated, across the state.

In higher education, the governor proposes to balance the budget on the backs of students and their families yet again by increasing fees for UC (15%) and CSU students (10%) on top of last year’s spikes.  The Speaker’s budget would reduce the governor's ill-advised fee increases by half, and protects community college students against any fee increases.

Community colleges always experience enrollment increases in an economic downturn.  Yet for the past two years budget cuts have forced the community colleges to lay off faculty and staff.  Thousands of class sections around the state have been closed at a time when students are flooding the system.  Many districts have reduced or entirely eliminated summer school offerings.

According to Los Angeles AFT Faculty Guild president Joanne Waddell, who represents instructors in the largest community college district in the state, “High school graduates who want and need to go to college should have that opportunity, especially when there is no place for them yet in the depressed economy.” The California Jobs Budget proposes $100 million to fund increased training through community college course offerings.  While inadequate to address the entire community college funding shortfall, this augmentation compares with the governor’s proposal of $25 million.

The California Jobs Budget understands that education is the fuel for California's economic engine.  The proposal is in line with the views of a solid majority of Californians, who in poll after poll agree that protecting education is preferable to providing corporations with giant tax loopholes. For instance, California is the only state in the country that does not have an oil severance tax.  George Bush's Texas has an oil severance tax, and so does Sarah Palin's Alaska.  An oil severance tax would raise a billion dollars a year to help protect education and social services, with no adverse impact on ordinary Californians, which is why this type of tax has been folded into the Assembly proposal. 

Click here to view a detailed summary of the California Jobs Budget.