Category: Funding & Finance

Funding & Finance

Board Member Action Day: Speaking truth to power

Demonstrating their dedication to children and passion for public education, members of school district and county office of education governance teams throughout California gathered at the home offices of their state representatives to advocate for local governance and other issues vital to public schools as part of CSBA’s Board Member Action Day May 10.

Budget discussions crescendo as governor’s May Budget Revision nears

Next week, on Tuesday, May 14, the governor will unveil the May Budget Revision for fiscal year 2013-14. Details about his revision are beginning to surface, as are additional proposals. On May 8, Assembly Democrats announced their plans for the state budget, naming it the “Blueprint for a Responsible Budget.” In addition to calling for a ballot measure in 2014 to establish guidelines for a richer state reserve, a strong focus of the Blueprint is children and education. For K-12, they call for all school districts to get their share of previous funding cuts repaid as Proposition 98 grows.

Latest developments in the Local Control Funding Formula

Sen. Carol Liu (D-La Cañada Flintridge) presented SB 69, her bill on school finance and a new funding formula, to the Senate Education Committee on Wednesday, May 1. In presenting the bill, Sen. Liu noted it is a work in progress. It’s intended to move the discussion of a new education funding method forward by providing a venue and vehicle for policy discussion and debate. The bill was voted out of the Senate Education Committee, with the Republican committee members not voting. The bill will now progress to the Senate Appropriations Committee.

California schools tackle Common Core challenges

How are school districts and county offices of education preparing to implement the Common Core State Standards? It’s a daunting task, reveals the spring 2013 issue of California Schools magazine. To be ready for new common national academic standards, local educational agencies will have to dramatically change instructional methods and prepare students—and technological systems—to handle revolutionary computerized tests. This would be a tall order in the best of budgetary times. Yet despite years of harsh cuts in state support for public education, LEAs throughout the state are finding creative and innovative ways to meet the CCSS challenge.

There’s power in numbers! Register today for Board Member Action Day, May 10

The theme for CSBA’s Legislative Agenda is Governance First and there’s no better way to demonstrate the importance of local school governance than to participate in Board Member Action Day on May 10. That day, school board members statewide will head to their Assembly Member’s […]

Sequestration … It’s here with more federal cuts coming

by Erika Hoffman, CSBA Legislative Advocate On March 1, the sequester – the automatic, across-the-board federal budget cuts to both defense and non-defense programs – took effect. The federal Office of Management and Budget issued orders notifying agencies to make spending cuts.   Although some […]

Senate hears details of governor’s funding formula

Dennis Meyers

By Dennis Meyers, CSBA Assistant Executive Director for Governmental Relations The Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) had its first hearing today before the Senate Budget and Fiscal Review Committee. The Department of Finance presented details of the proposal; testimony also came from the Legislative Analyst, […]