03/29/2024

Despite revenue warning, school funding will rise

Despite lowered state revenue projections and Gov. Jerry Brown’s prediction that an economic recession could come any moment, state funding for K-12 and community colleges will rise nearly $3 billion for the fiscal year starting July 1, under the May revision of the 2016-17 state budget released on Friday.

A $1 billion drop in expected revenue in April provided the rationale for a fiscally cautious Brown to repeat his warning to legislators not to add new spending, including for early education. Based on historic averages, a recession should have started already, so the state is living on borrowed time, he said. And California, which relies on taxing the wealthiest 1 percent, is subject to huge revenue plunges during a recession. “There are no halcyon days ahead,” he said.

The Brown administration is now projecting $2 billion less for next year than was forecast in January, resulting in less money to put aside in the state rainy fund. But that decline won’t affect Proposition 98, the formula that determines education funding. Prop. 98 funding would increase to $71.9 billion in 2016-17 or $2.8 billion more than the revised total for the current year, a 4 percent increase. Proposition 98 spending would be $3.5 billion more than the Legislature appropriated last year.

Total General Fund spending would rise $6.5 billion, to $122.2 billion.

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