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S.O.S. News & Articles |
| 1-17-08 |
Dear concerned community
members, business owners and parents, |
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The members of Plumas
SOS would like to make you aware of another set of pending
state budget decisions, which are expected to again impact
our local schools.
On January 10 Governor Schwarzenegger released his proposed
2008-09 State Budget declaring a "fiscal emergency" and
proposing massive cuts to public education, signaling the start
of another difficult financial period for public education.
The governor‚s budget proposes a 10 percent across the
board cut for all General Fund departments and programs, including
public education. This proposal would be the largest reduction
to K-12 spending in California history, totaling cuts of over
$4.4 billion dollars to schools and community colleges. What
is disturbing is that it includes a suspension of the Proposition
98 minimum public education funding guarantee. The governor proposes
to tackle the state‚s estimated $14 billion deficit through
spending cuts alone and no tax increases. This leaves public
education and other vital state services to bear the brunt and
responsibility of the state‚s current fiscal crisis.
Sadly, while it is clear there are extraordinary challenges in
balancing the state‚s budget, our students and schools
did not create this budget problem and their progress shouldn‚t
be undermined because of it.
The reason for the state fiscal emergency is insufficient tax
revenue due to weakening of the state's economy, showing its
first signs early in 2007.
The governor proposes to suspend Proposition 98, the original
purpose of which is to guarantee minimum funding for public education.
An analysis of expected impacts on our local schools will be
forthcoming once we get feedback from the Plumas county Office
of Education, hopefully in the next few days.
For more in depth discussion of the state budget proposal please
click here to read our newsletter. In particular the last
section "Proposed Response" maybe helpful to get the "big
picture".
Please pass this along to other's concerned about the welfare
of education in Plumas County and the State of California. |
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| 7-16-07 |
Our
School Funding—A
Short History by Kim Wilbanks.
Public schools in America have always been funded from a variety
of sources including local, state, and federal tax dollars. A
percentage of the property taxes collected from property owners
in each county is earmarked for the schools. In many small
rural areas, such as ours, a substantial amount of the land in
the county is owned by the government, in the form of National
Forests. No property taxes can be collected on this land,
so our schools receive far less funding from tax dollars than
do schools in areas with more privately owned, taxable land.
[read more] |
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