Frustration Over School Money
Eleanor Karneke (Letters, July 25) identified a very common frustration: Despite increasing school revenues from property taxes, school budgets are being cut.
The Santa Paula Elementary School District is not the only school system afflicted with this anomaly. In the Oak Park Unified School District, many parents who are paying property taxes on the full value of $500,000 homes cannot understand why their children have austere school programs.
The cause of this frustration is California’s system of school finance, which takes away a dollar in state funds for every dollar generated for public schools by property taxes. That means the $13 million in increased tax revenues cited by Ms. Karneke will not yield a single dollar for schools.
To make things worse, the Legislature and governor traditionally solve budget deficits by reducing state funding for public education. For example, for every $100 in added property taxes for schools, the state then takes away $101 in state funds. Proposition 98 was supposed to end this practice. However, for 1990-1991, Gov. Deukmejian again proposed cuts for our public schools in order to prevent a budget deficit.
DAVID E. ROSS
Agoura
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