Each year families from other states move to sunny California. While they are generally pleased with the quality of education they find here, they are amazed that we do not have the resources offered by schools in their home state.

Small class sizes and specialists in music, art, physical education and science are standard fare in other states. It’s hard for these parents to believe that the "golden state" spends half of what some of our Eastern seaboard states spend on their children’s education!

This past August, more than a month after the start of the 1995-96 fiscal year, Governor Wilson signed the Budget Act of 1995.

The budget package provides the first significant increase in school funding since 1990. But, while it adds much-needed dollars into school district budgets, California per pupil spending is still 40th in the nation—$1,000 per pupil (or $30,000 per classroom and more than $.5 million per school!) behind the national average!

For the first time in five years, we received a cost of living adjustment. The 2.73% COLA had been predicted last spring and, therefore, was already built into our budget for this year.

The new state budget will also provide "one-time" grants of $51-53 per student for instructional materials, deferred maintenance, education technology, and/or other non-recurring costs.

Another $26 per student will be allocated as a block grant to be used for certain categorical programs such as SIP, Mentor Teachers, Staff Development, Miller-Unruh Teachers, etc.

Specific allocations were also made to augment allocations for deferred maintenance, instructional materials, grants for educational technology, and miscellaneous funding.

If the state is able to finalize the settlement of a lawsuit known as CTA vs. Gould, some additional monies may be made available in August 1996. Equalization funds would be allocated to bring low-wealth districts up to the 1995-96 statewide average. Since our district is well below the state average in revenues per child, this would help us.

While this is the good news, there’s a little hitch!

Every year the state tells us our entitlement—and then deducts more than 11% from what they actually send us! This "deficit factor" would amount to a loss of $1.7 million this year! If the lawsuit finally gets settled, this would be reduced to an annual loss of a "mere" $1.6 million!

Thirty years ago, California ranked among the top ten states in funding its public schools. Today—even with this new budget package—it is mired in the bottom ten!

To bring the per-pupil funding for Encinitas Union School District up to just the national average would take an additional $5 million! That’s why the district and the Encinitas Educational Foundation continue their active pursuit of outside funding to enrich the educational program for our children.

We are proud of the superb job our staff does for children and the results they get, in spite of our inequitable funding. We must work together relentlessly to communicate our needs and priorities with our legislators.

This new budget will provide real help only if it’s the first step in the state’s on-going commitment to bring California public schools closer to the national average.