Calif. Revised Budget Means More Funds for BHUSD

The Beverly Hills Unified School District, like most districts across the state, got surprisingly good news when Gov. Jerry Brown released his amended budget Monday.

BHUSD had feared the worst after Brown’s failed bid to put on voter ballots this June. But his latest budget revealed that California earned $6.6 billion more in tax revenue than originally expected, decreasing the state deficit to $9.6 billion through June 30, 2012.

Much of those savings would go toward education thanks to Proposition 98, which guarantees public K-12 schools and community colleges a minimum amount of state funding. Until Monday, Brown had been threatening to suspend the proposition to trim the California budget.

If the revised budget is approved by the California Legislature, the state’s school districts will altogether receive about $3 billion more next year than they did this year.

“It’s very encouraging news,” Assistant Superintendent of Business Services Alex Cherniss told Patch. “What looks good about this proposal is that both the [state] Democrats and Republicans appear to be supporting the use of increased state revenue to support school funding.”

However, Cherniss added that he is “cautiously optimistic as there are still many unanswered questions.” 

The Beverly Hills Education Foundation, together with the BHUSD and the city’s five school PTAs, recently raised more than $600,000 through the to fund teacher salaries next year. Fourteen teachers and counselors, however, were still notified Friday that their positions were being eliminated. It is unclear whether the state’s revised budget will allow BHUSD to rehire any of them.

The new budget actually gives BHUSD a breather for the next three years, as the district had in a special reserve for each year through 2013-14, Cherniss said. BHUSD always plans three years ahead because it must file three-year budget projections with the Los Angeles County Office of Education.

“I encourage you … through your respective newsletters to encourage parents to write to the governor and thank him for his support of public education,” Board of Education Vice President Brian Goldberg wrote in an email to PTA leaders. Just last week, he had been urging parents to contact Brown to ask the governor to uphold Proposition 98.

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