Forecast Webcast: outlook is unsettled
State economy, budget studied
Published: January 30, 2012
CSBA’s annual Forecast Webcast last month zeroed in on Gov. Jerry Brown’s ambitious plans for K-12 education, ranging from his 2012-13 budget proposal and the high-stakes ballot measure that it hinges on to far-reaching changes he hopes to make in state mandates affecting schools.
Much of the annual presentation elaborated on CSBA’s analysis of Brown’s budget proposal. CSBA political experts and guests also delved into economic developments that will influence events nationwide, throughout the state and in the local boardrooms where school district and county office governance teams grapple with budgetary, policy and regulatory developments. The two-hour webcast is archived for viewing anytime on CSBA’s website.
‘Slower-growing economy’
The governor’s budget proposal relies on a “pretty sound” state Department of Finance prediction for the state’s economy, said Jeffrey Michael, director of the Business Forecasting Center at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, as the webcast got under way.
“We’re maturing into a slower-growing economy” in California, where an annual economic growth rate of around 2 percent is expected to continue into 2012, Michael said. Double-digit jobless rates will continue through 2013 as the recovery from “the Great Recession” proceeds, with four more years required for the state to return to prerecession employment levels.
Significant regional contrasts will remain—sometimes side by side. The San Francisco Bay area “has come back extremely well” overall, for example, despite sluggishness in the East Bay, whose economy is tied to the Port of Oakland, Michael said.
Michael had opposed the governor’s 2011 effort to extend expiring tax provisions, which failed to attract the required two-thirds legislative approval, but the economist said he views Brown’s smaller, more progressive 2012 ballot proposal more favorably, although still guardedly.
Brown’s budget proposal
In his presentation that followed Michael’s, CSBA Assistant Executive Director for Governmental Relations Dennis Meyers also withheld judgment on Brown’s tax proposal, called the “Schools and Local Public Safety Protection Act of 2012.” Meyers outlined alternative scenarios assuming the measure qualifies for the November ballot, allowing voters to decide its fate.
Meyers also said the education community was surprised and disappointed to learn Brown’s 2012-13 budget proposal would zero out home-to-school transportation, making permanent the cut in the current budget that was triggered at midyear by unrealized revenue projections.
Weighted student funding
Brown’s 2012-13 budget also proposes a weighted student funding formula, a revenue distribution approach long favored by the education community over current practice. For each revenue dollar per student enrolled, Brown would add 37 cents for each student classified as an English learner, and another 37 cents for each student eligible for free or reduced-price lunches; districts with high concentrations of targeted students would get an additional 7 cents per dollar. The extra funding would help address extra costs associated with those students, whose challenges account for much of the documented gap in academic achievement.
“There would be winners and losers” among school districts relative to their current levels of funding, Meyers cautioned, depending on how many students in the weighted formula each district has.
“There has to be a hold-harmless provision so there [are] not winners and losers,” CSBA Legislative Advocate Debra Brown agreed when she and other speakers joined in a panel discussion for the concluding segment of the webcast. “I don’t see how we could support something that carries that risk for students.”
Joining CSBA’s Brown and Meyers and economist Michael on the discussion panel were Jeff Frost—a former CSBA legislative advocate who’s now with the education advocacy firm of Frost, Davis and Donnelly—and Steve Henderson, legislative representative at the California School Employees Association, offering informed commentary on a range of topics.