Last week, Sacramento County\u2019s Office of Education rejected a revised labor agreement that the Sacramento City Unified School District had claimed would\u00a0stave off its insolvency.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe long-term financial recovery of the district will take time and require extraordinary fiscal discipline, not just short-term loans and redirected funds, all of which must be repaid,\u201d David Gordon, the county superintendent of schools,\u00a0said in a statement. \u201cThe agreement would only temporarily delay SCUSD\u2019s impending insolvency by a few weeks while also making it more difficult for the district to make a sustainable long-term fiscal recovery.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sac City Unified has been flirting with financial collapse for decades by chronically spending more \u2014 especially on labor contracts \u2014 than it could cover with revenues.<\/p>\n
Every time it reaches the brink, it cobbles together some sort of plan that on paper covers its shortfall but turns out to be pixie dust. The county education office and the state\u2019s\u00a0Fiscal Crisis & Management Assistance Team\u00a0tell district officials their plan is unworkable, and the squabble continues. The county education office figures the district\u00a0faces a structural deficit\u00a0of $221.8 million, but the district has said it\u2019s a $170.5 million deficit.<\/p>\n
Ultimately, if the state steps in with loans, the district would be compelled to cede day-to-day management to an outside caretaker, reducing the district\u2019s board and administration to bystanders. It\u2019s\u00a0happened to a number of other urban school districts\u00a0in years past, and Sac City Unified is very close to that ignominious status.<\/p>\n
Four-hundred miles to the south, the state\u2019s largest school district, Los Angeles Unified, is\u00a0following a similar path, although it has not quite reached the critical stage of the Sacramento district.<\/p>\n
In July, the Los Angeles County Office of Education warned L.A. Unified that its financial plan does not adequately demonstrate how it can meet all of its obligations. It faces a $231 million shortfall next year, and if its gap between income and outgo continues, an \u201cadvisor\u201d would be appointed to overrule district officials on financial matters.<\/p>\n
Michael Fine, CEO of the Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team,\u00a0told the California education news outlet, EdSource, that L.A. Unified has approved labor contracts without explaining how they would be financed.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s when the board says, \u2018I\u2019m going to approve these contracts, even though I don\u2019t know how I\u2019m going to pay the bill,\u2019 that\u2019s where the problem is,\u201d Fine said. \u201cIt\u2019s not with the negotiations themselves. It\u2019s not with the deal that was made.\u201d<\/p>\n
As the Sacramento and Los Angeles situations imply, the chronic tendency to overspend revenues is largely an issue for larger urban school systems, reflecting how they have become ultra-politicized and dominated by school trustees elected with the support of powerful school unions.<\/p>\n
California schools do face some daunting issues, such as declining enrollment \u2014 which affects attendance-based state financial aid \u2014 and the same inflationary forces that affect everyone.<\/p>\n
Schools have experienced remarkable gains in financial support in recent years \u2014 now totaling\u00a0more than $25,000 per pupil\u00a0from all sources \u2014 but as revenues increase, so do political pressures to increase spending.<\/p>\n
The resulting gaps between income and outgo become structural deficits \u2014 very much like what\u2019s been happening with the state budget. The scrambles to paper over the shortfalls essentially kick the fiscal can down the road without addressing the underlying causes.<\/p>\n
One of the steps Gov. Gavin Newsom and the Legislature took in June to balance the state\u2019s $351 billion budget on paper is to\u00a0withhold $3.9 billion in constitutionally mandated state school aid, promising to catch up later.<\/p>\n
Thus the state\u2019s irresponsible fiscal games are exacerbating the chronic financial problems that school systems face, including those in Sacramento and Los Angeles.<\/p>\n
Dan Walters is a CalMatters columnist<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last week, Sacramento County\u2019s Office of Education rejected a revised labor agreement that the Sacramento City Unified School…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":181513,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[147],"tags":[10682,2570,542,2182,1960,50,4060,55],"class_list":["post-181512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-gavin-newsom","tag-columnists","tag-community","tag-gavin-newsom","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-newsletter","tag-opinion"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/117055618103923802","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181512"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181512\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/181513"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}