Fact Check: If Education Were a Legislative Priority, Would Trigger Cuts Be Necessary?

A central feature of the Governor's budget is $5.5 billion in K-14 education trigger cuts and $500 million in higher education trigger cuts, which represents 99% of all of the trigger cuts.  $2.7 billion of those K-14 cuts would be true programmatic cuts.  The cuts would kick in mid-year, which is forcing many districts to cut budgets this summer to avoid a mid-year meltdown.  Since the Governor's budget predicts that revenues will grow $4.9 billion next year without his proposed tax increase, the question remains, if the Legislature made education a priority, could trigger cuts be avoided?

Findings:

·         The Governor increased the trigger cuts targeting education to $6 billion.  Education would take 99% of the cuts even though schools only receive 50% of funding.

·         The Legislative Analyst offered an alternative to the Governor's trigger cut which would reduce the K-14 programmatic cut from $2.7 billion to $1 billion.[i]

·         The Republican "Budget Roadmap to Protect Classrooms and Taxpayers" identified more than $4.4 billion in alternative savings that could be used to avoid education trigger cuts.  The Governor's May Revision used approximately $2 billion of those solutions to avoid cuts to health and welfare programs, while at the same time increasing the proposed trigger cut to education.  The Legislature could reject the Governor's proposal to divert savings to non-education programs and redirect savings to schools to eliminate or dramatically reduce the Governor's proposed education trigger cuts.

Read more.

Source: Assemblywoman Kristin Olsen