Brown's budget gives education big boost

Gov. Jerry Brown announces his proposed state budget revise at the State Capitol May 14, 2013 in Sacramento, Calif. Gov. Jerry Brown announces his proposed state budget revise at the State Capitol May 14, 2013 in Sacramento, Calif. Photo: Max Whittaker/Prime, Special To The Chronicle Photo: Max Whittaker/Prime, Special To The Chronicle Image 1 of / 7 Caption Close Brown's budget gives education big boost 1 / 7 Back to Gallery

Sacramento --

Over the next few years, California's public schools will reap billions of extra dollars in revenue as the state slowly emerges from the Great Recession.

From 2011-12 to 2016-17, school funding will jump by $19 billion from $47.3 billion to $66.5 billion, according to Gov. Jerry Brown, who presented his revised spending plan for the next fiscal year on Tuesday. The plan includes a $2.9 billion increase in the current year.

But public education is the only area of the state budget that is seeing a significant increase in the revised budget plan. Democrats in the Legislature had anticipated a significant surplus for next year, but Brown said actions by the federal government - including the automatic spending cuts and the increase in the payroll tax - eliminated any such surplus.

The governor said his budget "is a call for prudence, not exuberance." He credited the passage of Proposition 30 by voters in November as key to stabilizing the budget and providing more money for education, but cautioned, "this is not the time to break out the Champagne."

The boost for education is due to Proposition 98, which voters approved in 1988 to force the state to set aside a certain portion of budget dollars for schools. Brown said that under the complex funding formula, all of the unanticipated revenue the state collected this year - plus about $100 million more - would go for K-12 public schools and community colleges.

In addition, the state still owes schools billions from past years when payments owed to schools were delayed. The revised plan proposes to pay back $2.5 billion of that, $700 million more than he had proposed in January.

Per-student increase

California currently spends roughly $8,000 per K-12 public school student. That amount is expected to drop in the next fiscal year but then pick up in the following years, reaching an additional $2,754 per student by 2016 when compared with 2011-12 funding levels.

The drop in per-pupil spending next year is due to the drop in revenue. This current year's revenues are projected at $98.2 billion and next year's are projected at $97.2 billion.

The governor's plan forecast that California will have less tax revenue coming into its coffers in the next fiscal year than was anticipated just four months ago, when he said he expected $98.5 billion. Before the recession, California's general fund spending peaked at $103 billion.

The general fund is the state's main checking account that pays for most government services, including K-12 public schools and higher education, prisons, health and human services and parks. Including special fund spending, which is money raised by fees for specific purposes related to those fees, California would spend $137 billion in the next fiscal year.

The news of smaller revenues disappointed some Democrats who were eager to use any extra money to begin restoring cuts made in the darkest budget days.

'Humbling' drop

Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, the chairman of the Senate Committee on Budget and Fiscal Review, called the forecasted drop in revenue "humbling."

"It's important for voters to remember that the passage of Prop. 30 in effect just stopped the bleeding," Leno said, adding that it "just reversed that course and stabilized it. It doesn't do much more than that."

Other new pieces in Brown's revised proposal include an additional $48 million next year in CalWORKS job training and in subsidies to employment programs. He also plans to give an additional $72 million to county probation departments, which have been inundated with work due to the governor's prison realignment program.

Brown made some minor revisions to his plan to send additional money to schools with high concentrations of students who are low-income, learning English as a second language or who are in foster care.

One major policy decision in the plan is for the state to handle the expansion of Medi-Cal, California's Medicaid program, as part of the implementation of the Affordable Care Act as opposed to handing that responsibility to the counties. As part of that, however, Brown wants to take back money the state currently gives to counties for medical care of indigent people and use that for social welfare programs.

Health care advocates were unhappy with the proposal.

Cap-and-trade issue

Brown also disappointed environmental advocates and advocates for poor people in polluted areas, who were eager to learn how the state would spend money generated by the cap-and-trade program. That money, about $500 million, was supposed to go toward various efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the state. Instead, the governor has proposed "borrowing" it from the special fund and moving it all to the general fund.

One other proposal made by Brown that doesn't come with a price tag is to allow counties to move people who are serving lengthy jail sentences to state prisons as long as the counties take into jails state prisoners who are serving shorter sentences.

Lawmakers have a constitutional deadline of June 15 to pass a spending plan for the 2013-2014 fiscal year, which begins July 1. Legislative budget committee hearings on the proposals begin later this week.