South Bay educators, parents celebrate LCFF compromise
The Legislature last week passed an amended version of Governor Jerry Brown’s Local Control Funding Formula – a budget provision that will overhaul the way California schools are funded – and while it wasn’t quite what they were hoping for, local education advocates are breathing a sigh of relief knowing it could have been worse.
Senator Ted Lieu and Assemblymember Al Muratsuchi, backed by South Bay parents, teachers, and school administrators, have been fighting against the formula, which they argue divides school districts into winners and losers.
The winners, they postulate, are school districts with high proportions of English language learners, poor students, and foster youth. The losers are districts like many in the South Bay, which would not be eligible for the same grants and are still struggling to recover from deep, recession-related budget cuts.
Assemblymember Al Muratsuchi; Penny Bordakas, MBUSD Board of Trustees member; Ida VanderPoorte, MBUSD School Board President; Leanne Huebner, MBEF Executive Board Member & PTA Council Legislative Advocacy Chair; Susan Neal, Manhattan Beach PTA Council Capital Convoy Chair; and, Susan Warshaw, MBEF Executive Director. Courtesy of Leanne Huebner
Redondo Beach Unified School District Superintendent Steven Keller applauds the efforts of both Lieu and Muratsuchi, calling the lawmakers “our lone advocates for South Bay kids,” but is still disappointed that the formula passed.
“Are the dollars better?” he asked of the revised formula. “Yes. Are Redondo Beach kids going to receive the same amount of money as kids north of the 405? No. But the compromise is better than what was originally presented.”
After months of lobbying in the Capitol, lawmakers and parent and educator groups managed to call attention to their cause and last week, the Legislature agreed to amend the formula.
More than $2 billion in base grants will be set aside to begin restoring pre-recession funding levels to all school districts. The Legislature is calling it an economic recovery payment, which will amount to a $537 increase per pupil in all districts.
The Legislature also voted to increase payments toward the implementation of Common Core Standards from $1 billion to $1.25 billion statewide, ensuring every school district next year will get no less than it received this year.
“What I was fighting for was to make sure that all school districts were held harmless by the Local Control Funding Formula, so no school would experience a cut,” Senator Lieu, whose constituencies include the Beach Cities, told Easy Reader. “The revised Local Control Funding Formula achieves that. Compared to original Local Control Funding Formula, the revised one is significantly better because it helps all school districts statewide, including those in the South Bay.
“It is not a perfect budget for my district but it’s a good budget for California.”
Lieu said he and Muratsuchi knew they were playing “with a fairly weak hand” going into the lobbying effort, in light of overwhelming support for the formula from most of their fellow lawmakers.
“Clearly the South Bay educators and stakeholders and parents did lobby and they did a great job, but it was also very clear that those supporting the Local Control Funding Formula were far more numerous,” he said. “But I’m very pleased with what we were able to achieve.”
Lieu has high hopes that all districts will end up receiving greater funding than they anticipate, because the California Legislative Analyst’s Office issued projections he believes err on the side of much too conservative.
“These are just estimates that the Governor’s come out with,” he said. “The money schools get will be based on actual revenue, on what actually comes in this year. I am optimistic those real dollars will be higher than what’s been projected, so schools should get even higher amounts of funding.”
While Muratsuchi is pleased that the state is increasing base grants to all districts, and grateful to those who lobbied alongside him and Lieu, he is mindful that the battle will continue.
“I want to emphasize that this fight is not over,” he said. “We need to continue to make sure that as this new system continues to be carried out so that all school districts, including our South Bay schools, continue to receive our fair share of dollars.”
Leanne Huebner, who represents Manhattan Beach Unified School District’s PTA legislative council, considers the compromise a victory for students. She lauds Muratsuchi and Lieu for being among the few legislators at Capitol Hill to fight tooth and nail for their school districts.
“After years of cuts, we were thrilled at how [they] worked hard on the issue of the need for a higher per-pupil base funding for all students, but especially South Bay students,” said Huebner, a Pennekamp Elementary mom.
When Gov. Brown’s proposal became known earlier this year, Huebner spearheaded a letter-writing campaign to the governor asking him to restore base funding for all students back to 2007-2008 levels before allocating supplemental funding for high-needs students.
“Conceptually we like what the governor was trying to achieve,” she explained, “and that wasn’t what we were trying to fight.
“It’s better than what we would’ve gotten for sure under the Governor’s [original] plan,” she said. “It’s not perfect, but at the end of the day, we were thrilled.”
MBUSD Superintendent Michael Matthews said while he does not yet have “all the details,” he echoes Huebner’s gratitude toward Lieu and Muratsuchi.
“It’s a great feeling to be optimistic and thankful for a budget from the State of California,” Matthews said.