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To: nextrade! who wrote (10647)	5/12/2003 8:59:51 PM
From: nextrade!	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 306849

Ca, School districts' limited choices mean job cuts dailybulletin.com The real world effect of bad budget news showed itself in the Inland Valley last week, as school districts announced layoffs and reduced work hours for employees. No one likes putting people out of work, but districts have few choices available. The state budget faces a deficit that may be as large as $35 billion. Filling that hole will require some tax increases, but it also demands steep cuts in spending. And since education spending is the largest single item in the budget, there's no way it can hope to escape cutbacks. In better years, spending on education from kindergarten to university made up nearly half the state general fund budget. The governor's proposal for next year cuts that share to about 42 percent, with most of that going for K-12 spending. School districts depend on the state for funding -- unlike the old days, when local property taxes paid their bills -- so any budgetary problems the state has inevitably flow down to the local level. The current problems are no exception; proposed cuts for K-12 education statewide range from $1.6 billion to $2.2 billion. Ontario-Montclair School District faces a $6 million shortfall, for example, while Chino Valley Unified projects an $11.1 million budget hole. But since most of any school district's budget comes in personnel costs, the only real resort districts have to balance budgets is to lay off people. So Ontario-Montclair has trimmed 90 people from its rolls and reduced the work hours of others. Cucamonga School District has sent out 22 layoff notices, and story is much the same in school districts across the valley. Districts try as much as possible to protect their basic educational programs, but it's impossible for the cuts not to have some effect on operations. Unpleasant? Yes, but those are the facts of life for public school districts in California.