Placentia-Yorba Linda school district trustees call for 'full and fair funding' in new resolution

Of the dozens of resolutions adopted by local governing boards each year, easily one of the most significant was approved on a unanimous vote last week by the elected trustees of the Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified School District.

The resolution calls for “full and fair funding” of the state's public schools. Specifically, local trustees want the state legislature to fund schools at the national average or higher by 2020 and at or above the average of the top 10 states nationally by 2025.

Currently, state schools are funded at about $1,961 per-pupil less than the national average – or $3,462 per-pupil less when adjusted for California's status as a “high-cost” state. California trails the average of the top 10 states by almost $7,000 in per-pupil funding.

Other North County school districts are expected to consider similar resolutions next month. The matter was on the Brea-Olinda Unified School District's board agenda earlier this week.

The “full and fair funding” resolution originated with the California School Boards Association, which represents some 1,000 local school boards and county boards of education throughout the state.

Representing North County school district boards on the association's delegate assembly are Placentia-Yorba Linda trustees Carrie Buck and Karin Freeman and Robert Singer, a 38-year trustee for the Fullerton Joint Union High School District.

The resolution states some pretty dismal figures for school funding, considering California is the world's sixth largest economy and has the largest gross domestic product of any state in the nation.

Overall, “the state falls in the nation's bottom quartile on nearly every measure of public K-12 school funding and school staffing,” and K-12 funding “has not substantially increased, on an inflation-adjusted basis, for more than a decade,” according to the resolution.

Among the statistics cited in the resolution: The state ranks 45^th of 50 states in the percentage of taxable income spent on education, 41^st in per-pupil funding, 45^th in pupil-teacher ratios and 48^th in pupil-staff ratios, with funding just this year returning to 2007 pre-recession levels.

On another matter, Placentia-Yorba Linda trustees approved a first interim report for the 2017 -18 fiscal year with a “positive certification,” which means the 25,432-student district will meet financial obligations for the current and two more fiscal years, based on current projections.

However, expenditures are expected to exceed income through June 2020, according to the current year's first interim budget and multi-year projections, with the lag in income made up from the district's reserves, the cash stockpile built up in past years.

The “reserve for future deficits” stands at $12.3 million this year, with projected drops to $7.1 million next year and zero dollars the year after. The projections do not include cost-of-living salary increases.