| California State Budget Shortfalls |
| In California
public schools are funded at the school district level: revenues
come from the Federal government, the local government (usually
a county) and the state government. The bulk of expenses are
salaries and benefits for teachers and staff. Although the
number of students and teachers in each district is usually
provided care should be taken in trying to compare revenues and expenses per student or per teacher: sometimes the number of students and/or teachers is zero. This may be because no data was reported or the district is a financial enity (ROP, JPA ...) as opposed to an educational entity. Likewise, revenue data may be zero if missing. The three rightmost columns estimate what happens if the revenue from the state is decreased - Result gives what would be paid to the district and Loan is what the school district would need to borrow or find (perhaps by reducing expenses). The percentage is the loan amount as a part of the new revenues. Clicking a county will download a spreadsheet for all the public school districts (includes a great many charters). You may wish to update the three revenue amounts with current (2023-2024) or projected figures. It may also be the case that a district has reserves, rainy day funds and so on. The tallies of teachers and students change daily - it usually does not matter is there are a few percent more or less teachers and students. Likewise, while the number of schools is included there is no impact on budgets - were one to combine or split districts revenues and costs would likely be unchanged. Similarly, anticipating cost reductions by changing a public school into a charter (if permitted) should be approached with caution. It is very unclear if state budget cuts were to devastate 200 or 400 or 600 school districts and cause takeovers where a corresponding number of first-rate superintendents could be found. Then there is the issue where money could be found. Fortunately, with the sunsetting of No Child Left Behind most measurement of student achievement will be absent so the resulting degradation of education can be largely ignored. Except, of course, by the students, and, eventually, their parents, colleges and employers. |
|
California state totals: 2,012 school districts; 10,196
schools; 5,803,271 students; 266,296 teachers and staff; over $15 Billion in Federal revenues; over $40 billion in local revenues; almost $60 billion in state revenues. |
| To return to the home page click here | data from https://nces.ed.gov/ccd/ |
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