Scholastic Cuts in County to Hit Vacaville Hardest

April 2, 2010

Apr. 1–Vacaville Unified School District would see the largest reduction in per student funding of all districts in Solano County under cutbacks in Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s budget proposal, according to the nonpartisan California Budget Project.

Across Solano County, the proposed cuts in state funding for districts would be as high as $6.4 million for Fairfield-Suisun Unified to a low of just over $1 million for Dixon Unified.

In Vacaville, the reduction would be about $3.7 million but that translates into $313 per student. Dixon and Vallejo unified school districts would see cuts of $303 per student, Benicia Unified would see $302-per-student cuts, Fairfield-Suisun Unified would see a $301 cut per student; and Travis Unified would face a $300-per-student cut.

In actuality, the cuts could be much deeper, though.

"The governor’s proposal includes his hope to get some $8 billion from the feds and that just absolutely is not going to happen," said Vacaville Unified School District Superintendent John Aycock. "In addition, proposed cuts in prison spending didn’t come through. So the … numbers are just not realistic."

Aycock said his staff is operating more on an expectation that cuts to the local district will be around $8 million.

The governor’s preliminary budget released in January would slash K- 12 education funding by $2.7 billion. The numbers could change, however, when the governor releases his revised budget in May.

The bulk of the cuts

($1.74 billion) would fall at the district level, reducing allotments that support operating costs for local schools and cost of living adjustments. The report excludes cuts to child care programs.

The analysis also excludes the governor’s plan to cut K-3 class size reduction program funding by $890 million because data are not yet available to assess the impact at the district level.

The estimated cut to the Solano County Office of Education would be $526,800, resulting in a 14 percent reduction compared to 2008-09 funding levels. That would mean less funding to support business, administrative and curriculum services to school districts, as well as financial oversight of districts