No immediate cuts face CVHS

CVHS does not plan to make any more cuts for the 2011-2012 school year but after next year there is no guarantee, believes CVUSD Superintendent Jim Negri.

“We believe we can go into next year without further cuts as long as the state cuts the budget by only $349 per student,” remarked Negri.
In total, CVUSD receives about $91 million a year: 69.4 percent from the state, 15 percent from property taxes, 13.2 percent from federal revenue, 1.4 percent from the state lottery, and one percent from other sources. What this means is that when the state is not doing well, schools are not doing well.
“After 2011-2012 we could be facing up to $5-6 million in cuts each following year,” warned Negri.
One of the reasons schools are not doing well is because the state legislators cannot decide on a budget when they are supposed to. Last year, the state budget was adopted in October, a record 100 days late. When the state budget is late, the school districts do not know what money they will have and have to guess. If they guess too high, the district will have to cut programs they did not think they would have to eliminate.
Governor Jerry Brown gave our district an unexpected $2.7 million in order to help schools recover. President Obama also provided $1,667,000 in federal stimulus funding this year under the Education Jobs Funding Act. These are funds the school district did not expect and therefore held them in reserve for next year. Hopefully, the extra money will offset any further cuts approved by the upcoming state budget in the fall.
Even with $91 million in revenue, CVUSD has deficit spending due to the fact that it spends $94 million per year. The biggest chunk of the yearly expenditures is 36.2 percent going to certified salaries, mainly for teachers.
All school districts have a revenue limit. A revenue limit is the amount of money a school is given for each student, multiplied by the actual attendance of these students.
“If all the parents sent their kids to school one day more during the school year our district would gain a million dollars,” noted Negri.