Tuesday, April 22, 2008 | Did any of you see the Sunday Union-Tribune editorial about the educational financial crisis that does not need to be a crisis?
I do not have it in front of me, but the California State Legislative Analyst has told the legislature that if they would reduce from 43 to 4 the number of restrictive mandates they have placed on every bit of money they send to local educational districts, the districts would have $2 billion or more to work with. But the legislators, mainly democrats, do not want the local districts to have enough money to function. And a summer of anguish over how to keep our schools functioning will force the Republicans and any other “hold outs” to support raising taxes.
Please read that article! (Sunday, April 20, in the editorials.)
I have read before in the U-T that in fact, Schwarzenegger said the cuts to the districts are only from the budget raise or increase that was promised the schools, and is not even coming from the basic budget. That article said there would be still something like $39 million above last year’s budget going to the schools.
What is going on here? Is the U-T lying? How are we being manipulated and why can’t we do something about it? Are we all wanting our taxes raised—just to have that extra money go into the netherworld? Have you noticed our dear governor has created a couple of new state positions—one to handle volunteers and then hired back two old cronies for something else. The salaries of these four come to a half million bucks!