Marin educators offer mixed reaction to Newsom’s budget

Marin educators reflected Wednesday on Gov. Gavin Newsom’s draft $291.5 billion budget, saying it preserved and supported most K-12 school programs but also put them on alert.

At least three Marin school districts and one charter school will be hit hard by the 2024-25 budget’s drop in the state’s cost of living adjustment to 0.76%, which is down from an 8.22% in the current year. The COLA is added to the per-pupil state subsidy, known as the local control funding formula, or LCFF.

“The budget outlook for our district is concerning — and even more so with the latest news that the cost-of-living adjustment has fallen again and now is below 1%,” said Bob Marcucci, San Rafael City Schools assistant superintendent for business services.

San Rafael’s elementary district is one of several Marin districts that are financed through the local control funding formula. Other similarly funded districts are Novato Unified School District, Ross Valley School District and Ross Valley Charter in Fairfax.

“We have an extremely challenging task ahead of us as we plan for reductions that no one wants to make,” Marcucci said. “As we do so, we are committed to working collaboratively with our community on solutions that help us maintain high-quality educational opportunities for our students as much as possible.”

The governor said Wednesday he is allocating $109.1 billion out of his spending plan to Proposition 98, the state’s minimum guaranteed education funding bill. Newsom said that translates to $17,653 in per pupil subsidies under Prop. 98 and will maintain most programs already in progress.

“It was heartening to hear the governor’s continued support for priorities including behavioral health and the social-emotional wellness of students, learning loss, career education, community schools and other initiatives doing very important work in our schools,” said Ken Lippi, senior deputy superintendent of Marin schools.

However, the COLA drop was disheartening, educators said.

“While the low COLA is indeed going to significantly impact our district, additional factors we need to consider are declining enrollment and lower average daily attendance,” said Marci Trahan, Ross Valley School District superintendent.

“Our preliminary LCFF revenue estimates for RVSD for next year show a decrease of approximately $800,000 from the current school year,” she said. “Given the complexity of the budget, we will need time to study and determine the impacts upon our district.”

Conn Hickey, business official for Ross Valley Charter, said he is “currently projecting a 3.94% COLA” and will do so until the final budget decisions are made in May and June.

He had no word yet if the state will allocate additional funds to some schools through the Education Revenue Augmentation Fund, he said.

“A 0.76% COLA with no additional ERAF funds would be around $80,000 less revenue than we are currently projecting,” Hickey said. “When we do our normal budgeting in May and June, if this seems like the number is going to be in the final budget, we will find areas to reduce expenses or increase revenue by 3%.”

The TK-5 charter school has a current enrollment of 197 students. The school is projecting enrollment of 208 pupils in 2024-25, Hickey said.

Unlike the Marin LCFF school districts, the charter school is not under a March 15 deadline to give “pink slips,” or preliminary layoff warnings, to staff if district officials think they will need to make cuts for the next school year.

Marcucci and Joshua Braff, chief business official at Novato Unified School District, said last month they were not expecting such a steep drop in the COLA, since the state budget act in 2023-24 had estimated a cost of living adjustment in the 3% to 4% range for 2024-25.

The California Teachers Association, which represents staff in a number of Marin school districts, praised the budget’s preservation of community schools.

“We are especially pleased that the governor remains unwavering in his commitment to community schools,” CTA president David Goldberg said. “With the historic $4.1 billion investment maintained, California is on the road to making one in four California schools a community school.”

He said the allocation “prioritizes democratic decision making, racial justice and the needs of students.”

Newsom, in his budget announcement Wednesday, shot down a preliminary estimate of a $68 billion budget deficit that came out last month from the state’s Legislative Analyst Office.

Instead, the governor said he and other state officials are now looking at a more-manageable $37.9 billion shortfall.

“This is a story of correction and normalization after a period of a tremendous amount of distortion,” Newsom said, referring to last year’s twice-delayed IRS income tax deadlines that skewed data on how much revenue the state was actually receiving until the last minute.

“All of us had a blindfold on,” Newsom said of last year’s revenue analyses.

Newsom said the lower $37.9 billion deficit estimate is the result of more than $18.8 billion in budget solutions to shore up the state’s general fund.

That includes transfers from the Rainy Day Fund and other reserves, cuts in state spending on new vehicles and IT equipment and a one-year deferral of 5% in funding to University of California and California State University.