Talk of the Point

Conversation openers at the Washington School community forum

If you’re planning to attend the Washington School community forum on February 10 and want background on West Contra County Unified’s performance and how the state’s budget crisis will affect us, read last week’s Sacramento Bee articles on school funding.

Start with “Paying for schools: A $4 million tale of forgiveness.” (All links are below.) It’s about a deal struck in 2000 by then-Assemblyperson Dion Aroner to help West Contra Costa County Unified School District recover from its 1991 financial disaster. Though the state had come to the rescue with a $29 million loan, debt repayments were suffocating. Aroner’s bill gave the district some air.

As part of the deal, the district got $4 million in $800,000 payments per year to spend as it pleases. Those payments are supposed to continue until 2005.

In fact, many school districts receive some special payment or other. All together, such grants are known as categorical aids and comprise $12 billion in the state’s budget. This year, with his eye on the $35 billion shortfall, Gray Davis proposed to consolidate and cut this funding. Read about it in “A labyrinth of spending: Special programs have grown into vast, bureaucratic jungle.”

Another part of Aroner’s deal was to have the school district’s performance monitored by the state’s Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team. That group reported last July and in January that the district is still not performing up to snuff.

The district is improving in some areas, but still in trouble in others — especially hiring and financial practices.

“There are several major concerns … in which little or no change has occurred,” the team wrote in July.

The latest report, posted on the Internet in January, notes that little has changed in these ongoing areas of concern. It echoed the reports of the past:

“If the district does not resolve these issues, the district’s future fiscal solvency will continue to be at risk.”

The article also says that the district’s state-appointed trustee wrote a response, but it doesn’t seem to be on the Web.

• “Paying for Schools: A $4 million tale of forgiveness,” , Sacramento Bee, February 6
• Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team’s report on West Contra Costa Unified School District Assessment and Improvement Plans
• “A labyrinth of spending: Special programs have grown into vast, bureaucratic jungle,” Sacramento Bee, February 6
• Washington School community forum

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