|
Legislation Team
Co-chairs |
|
Kathy Ranstrom
Sarah Butler
sarahgbutler@hotmail.com | |
|
|
Local Control of Local Classrooms Act
Submit Your Signature Now!
- Please sign the petition if you haven't already, and send in your petition(s) today, for the "Local Control of Local Classrooms Funding Act," the initiative to lower the threshold to pass school parcel taxes from 2/3 to 55%, on the November ballot.
- If you've already been gathering signatures, THANK YOU! Please send in your petitions/signatures immediately, so they can be counted. Then more can be collected until the deadline.
The group "Californians for Improved School Funding" is attempting to collect one million signatures. This is a true grassroots effort, with no paid signature gatherers, so we need your help. The Local Control of Local Classrooms Act would increase local control over our school budgets by amending the California Constitution to allow school districts to pass school parcel taxes with a 55% majority vote. Parcel tax funding stays in our schools, and is therefore not subject to Sacramento's endless budget problems and games. It enables us to protect programs that are important to our community. The initiative limits the amount of the tax to $250 and requires that property owners aged 65 or over be offered an exemption. It also requires independent annual audits and prohibits proceeds from being used for administrator salaries. We need your help to qualify for the November ballot. Please sign the petition, or, much better, volunteer to collect more signatures by following the instructions at www.improvedschoolfunding.com.
For additional information, go to:
The Local Control of Local Classrooms Act has been endorsed by the CA PTA.
| |
|
Check the Mail for Your Measure A Ballot! |
| Ballots for Measure A, the Acalanes Union High School District $112 emergency parcel tax, will be mailed April 5th to every registered voter. This election is by mail-in ballot only: don't let your ballot get lost in your Spring Break mail pile! As soon as you receive it, vote "yes," sign it, and mail it. Ballots not received in the election office by May 4 will not be counted.
Measure A would raise the local funds needed to avoid severe cuts to core academic programs, including science and mathematics, at our four local high schools.
Note: the Voter Registration deadline for this election is April 19th. To register to vote, click here.
Measure A is endorsed by the Las Trampas Creek Council of PTAs.
|
| Rally For Education Funding |
| Education funding in California is threatened as never before. Please join us on Thursday, April 15 at 4:30 p.m. as we speak up for our students! Invited speakers include California PTA President Jo Loss, all five State legislators from Contra Costa County, Contra Costa County Superintendent of Schools Dr. Joe Ovick, and more. We encourage parents, students, children of all ages, educators, community members, and anyone else who is interested in the future of our State to attend. The more people who attend, the stronger the message we send! Click here to download the flyer.
Thursday, April 15, 4:30 p.m.
College Park High School Quad
(201 Viking Drive, Pleasant Hill - next to Diablo Valley College)
|
| What's Happening with Pink Slips? |
| Those of us who are familiar with the budgeting process in the business world may find ourselves scratching our heads at the mystery that is school funding in California. Why can't our school districts tell us what their budgets for the 2010-2011 school year will be? Why are they issuing pink slips now when they can't say with certainty how may teachers and support staff they will need to lay off? Unfortunately, the answer is that our local school budgets are predominantly dependent on the California State budget and therefore subject to the myriad problems that plague that budgeting process.
On January 8, Gov. Schwarzenegger released his proposed State budget for 2010-2011. At the time, State income and sales tax receipts were just a projection, the final numbers not known until late April. He will release his revised budget in mid-May. Although the State has a statutory deadline of June 30 to adopt a budget, thereby letting our school districts know how much money they have to spend in the coming school year, in recent years it has taken them until as late as September to adopt their budget. Nonetheless, our school districts face a deadline of March 15 to issue pink slips to district employees, and an absolute deadline of June 30 to adopt their own budgets. With salaries comprising approximately 85% of our schools' budgets, significant budget reductions require layoffs. The deadline for rescinding pink slips is May 15, hopefully after the date the Governor releases his revised budget, but well before a real State budget is actually adopted. The result is that our districts are forced to guess how much money they will have for teachers and support staff, and plan their staffing accordingly. Budget reform at the State level has become a hot topic, and we will soon be seeing some proposals coming out of Sacramento.
| |
