Huntington Beach : Schools Budget Unfair, Trustees Tell Governor

The Ocean View School District’s board of trustees has written Gov. George Deukmejian, criticizing the state’s education budget as unfair to elementary and secondary schools and calling the impact of budget shortfalls on Ocean View “very severe.”

In the letter, board president Debra Leinweber wrote, “It is difficult to understand why K-12 (kindergarten through 12th grade) education, where student attendance is mandatory, suffered such a dramatic shortfall when junior colleges, state colleges and state universities, where attendance is not required, received a more normal type of COLA (cost-of-living allowance) that amounted to twice the K-12 allocation.”

Ocean View, she added, is having trouble simply keeping up with expenses. “Even though inflation factors have slowed, it will still cost our district 2.7% simply to roll over this year’s program, with no additions, to the next year’s budget,” Leinweber said in the letter. “The (state budget’s) 2.5% COLA fails to address this need.”

In response to critics such as state schools Supt. Bill Honig, Deukmejian has repeatedly defended his state education budget. The governor has pointed out that education allocations have consistently gone up every year since he has been in office.

The letter, however, questioned how those allocations have been divided and urged Deukmejian to give “thoughtful consideration” to possible changes.