Cuts Imperil School Gains, Honig Warns

If public school spending is cut by $2 billion or more next year--a possibility being discussed by Gov. Pete Wilson and lawmakers--”you’ll be doing something in a single year that you will not recover from for a decade,” state Supt. of Public Instruction Bill Honig told the joint legislative budget committee Wednesday.

Honig said school districts all over the state are increasing class size, reducing classes taught per day, laying off counselors, librarians and even some teachers and making only emergency repairs to school buildings.

“All the fat’s gone and we’re down to bone and bone marrow,” he said.

The schools chief said a $2-billion cut would translate into a reduction of $224 in spending per pupil next year, leaving California $954 behind the national per pupil average in state support for public schools.

He also noted that California already ranks close to the bottom among all states in percentage of personal income spent on schools and also has the largest class sizes in the country, with the possible exception of Utah.

Honig said a $2-billion cut would wipe out many of the gains made during the statewide educational reform movement of the last decade, which has resulted in lower dropout rates, higher test scores and a rising percentage of high school students who qualify for the University of California and the California State University.

With cuts of this magnitude, “you’re basically giving up on educating the youngsters in our state,” Honig said. “We are going to regret that decision and the public is not going to countenance those kinds of cuts.”

Honig’s remarks were well received by several Democrats on the two-house committee--Assemblymen John Vasconcellos (D-Santa Clara) and Tom Hannigan (D-Fairfield) and Sen. Gary Hart (D-Santa Barbara)--but were challenged by Assemblywoman Cathie Wright (R-Simi Valley).

“I don’t hear any discussion” about cutting programs or other costs, Wright said. She suggested that savings could be obtained by cutting administrative costs, abolishing county education offices, reforming the state workers’ compensation program and eliminating such things as “mentor teachers,” a $71-million program that provides extra pay to some senior teachers to pass along their skills to less experienced colleagues.

Honig said all of these changes would help. But “you’re talking about cutting at the edges--you can’t get enough money this way to make much of a difference,” he said.

Ron McPeck, vice president of the California Teachers Assn., told the committee that many school districts already “have slashed their budgets to the bone” and now face the prospect of further drastic reductions.

McPeck cited the examples of Sacramento, where 286 positions, including all counselors, have been eliminated; Glendale, which has raised class sizes in grades four through 12; and Los Angeles, where class sizes are likely to be increased once again, now that a proposal to shorten the school year has been discarded.

All of these cuts are being made in the face of another increase of about 200,000 in statewide enrollment next year, he said.

At a news conference preceding the committee hearing, Dan Moirao, superintendent of schools in Hayward, said 53% of California’s school districts now are engaged in deficit spending.

Honig predicted that another $2 billion in cuts “will likely force some (districts) into fiscal insolvency.”

“The system is wrong but it’s not the kids’ fault,” said Charity Webb, a member of the Berryessa school board in Santa Clara County and president-elect of the California School Boards Assn.

While this portrait of gloom and doom was being painted at the Budget Committee hearing and the news conference, behind the scenes educators and their allies, mostly Democrats, were searching for a solution that would limit the damage done to schools next year.

They are hoping to persuade Wilson to “roll over” at least $2 billion of the estimated total state budget shortfall to next year. In return, education officials indicate they would be willing to accept cuts in public school funding of as much as $750 million.

These cuts would include the 1.5% cost-of-living increase that was part of Wilson’s original budget proposal, the governor’s “prevention initiatives” such as expanded pre-school opportunities and early mental health counseling, and eliminating the proposed $200-million educational reserve fund.

However, so far neither Wilson nor Republican lawmakers have shown much interest in the “roll-over” idea.