Corona-Norco, Val Verde School Boards Adopt Resolution Opposing Newsom’s May Revise Budget

The Corona-Norco Unified School District and Val Verde Unified School District boards of education adopted a resolution opposing Gov. Gavin Newsom’s initial May revise budget earlier this month.

“You may have heard, the news picked up this [Proposition] 98 maneuver that was being proposed by Gov. Newsom,” Val Verde Superintendent Michael McCormick said at the board’s June 4 meeting. “And the maneuver included taking some monies out of a rainy day fund that was built up.”

That funding maneuver sought to cover the estimated $8.8 billion gap in funding from Prop 98, the state’s formula for calculating how much of the general fund must be spent on education, by borrowing against future state revenues, according to the California School Boards Association (CSBA), which the organization said would “undermine the spirit of Prop 98, as well as its statutory and constitutional requirements.”

McCormick said the maneuver would have also prevented school districts and others who follow the state budget from being able to track how much money would be owed to education in the future.

“The governor’s office has actually responded to some of that criticism, and they’ve already made some adjustments in their proposal,” he said. “But I think CSBA just wants to make sure that if there are school boards that are still passing this resolution that we send it to them so we can be on record as opposing the Prop 98 maneuver from the governor’s office.”

According to EdSource, the Newsom administration and the California Teachers Association (CTA) came to a tentative agreement at the end of last month to meet the legal requirements of Proposition 98 while also exempting TK-12 schools and community colleges from large funding cuts. Though CSBA 

“The impact is no longer going to be over $12 billion, but I think it’s important that we still pass this resolution, because the budget is not passed yet in the state legislature,” Corona-Norco Board President Chris Raahauge said at the board’s June 4 meeting. “I think we need to make a stand and and really just make sure that one, the governor knows that this is not something that we are OK with, and two, that the state legislature also knows that we want to make sure that the Prop 98 money that should be going to schools remains remains with the schools.”

For Corona-Norco Board Vice President Stacy Nicola, along with opposing the maneuver, she hoped that the proposition would also make the point that school district’s are requesting “some realness” in the budget.

“Gov. Newsom, I think, you know, they use numbers of what they anticipate to come in, and I think a lot of times those numbers are inflated, because they don’t want to be realistic about the economy,” she said. “And so then school districts like ours that are gigantic, we fund and we develop a budget … and then for them to come back later, and tell us, ‘Nevermind, we’re not giving you what we promised you.’ That puts us all in such a lurch.”

And while a funding plan was passed by the state legislature last week, the state budget is still far from settled, as CalMatters reported, even as the June 30 deadline for Newsom to sign it into law looms.