School district board gets update
on proposed state budget
February 18, 2015
By Brian D. Wilson
Santa Paula News
The Santa Paula Unified School District (SPUSD) board heard an update on the Governor’s proposed budget and how it would impact the SPUSD at a special meeting last week. The board also got a report on projected enrollment.
The report from Assistant Superintendent Donna Rose said the Governor’s budget proposals for the next school year “Continue the positive theme that has existed over the past two years for public education.” The Governor’s budget proposes a Proposition 98 minimum guarantee statewide of $65.7 billion, an increase of $2.5 billion or 4 percent from the revised current level. Proposition 98 funding is about 40 percent of the State education budget.
In a news release from Governor Brown’s office it states, “For K-12 schools, funding levels will increase by more than $2,600 per student in 2015-16 over 2011-12 levels. This reinvestment provides the opportunity to correct historical inequities in school district funding with continued implementation of the Local Control Funding Formula. Rising state revenues mean that the state can continue implementing the formula well ahead of schedule.”
The budget proposes $4 billion for continued implementation of the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF). The new funding is estimated to close the gap between 2014-15 funding levels and LCFF full implementation targets by 32.19%.
The board was told there will be an increase in enrollment across the district in the 2015-16 school year. The report says a moderate projected enrollment would have an increase of 2.7 percent. A conservative projection puts that percentage at 0.8 percent. Only three schools are now projected to see an increase in student population. The rest show declines in enrollment. The three expected to see growth are McKevett Elementary School, Isbell Middle School and Santa Paula High School.
The budget for the current school year totals $55,816,471. That number is projected to go down next year to $54,245,072 but is expected to increase in the 2016-17 school year to $55,829,270. The district revenues are projected to increase slightly through 2016-17.
