More about Measure A: Understanding School Finance

More about Measure A: Understanding School Finance
As I have been walking neighborhoods and answering questions online about Measure A, I’ve been impressed with the depth of some of the questions people have been asking.  This article provides some more in-depth answers to the questions I’ve been hearing, and hopefully explains in more detail how we receive our funding, and why Measure A is needed to close this funding gap.
Measure A flyers say that Scotts Valley schools are the lowest funded in Santa Cruz County, and that we are the 9^th lowest funded school District in the State.  What are the real numbers, and how do we compare? 
The following table shows how much money we receive per pupil per year from the State of California’s Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) compared to other districts in the County:

“Scotts Valley schools receive significantly less money per pupil, per grade level, than other districts in Santa Cruz County.”
Those per pupil differences above are really big.  Why do other schools get so much more money than we do?
You may have heard that Scotts Valley schools suffer because we are a “rural” school district.  While that used to be true, Sacramento changed school finance in 2014, implementing a new Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF).  This new formula hurts us in a different way – while we are required to deliver significant services to all of our students, we don’t receive sufficient funding to deliver these services. 
From the table above, you can see that Districts like Pajaro and Live Oak receive way more money per student than we do.  That’s because they have higher populations of “high need” students according to the new LCFF rules – English Language Learners, low-income students, and foster youth.  Scotts Valley doesn’t qualify for hardly any of these supplemental funds, and no concentration funds.
Why is the State a poor partner in education funding?
You’ve already seen the poor funding we receive from the State.  The second problem is that the State and Federal government require us to provide significant services, without providing the funds to pay for them – these are called “unfunded mandates.”  In this year’s school budget, we are receiving $0.25 for every dollar of spending that is mandated.  This requires us to spend nearly $900,000 more than we receive in State and Federal funding.  We have to make up the difference from our reserves.  At this rate, our reserves will be exhausted in 2021. 
Why not just cut the budget by $900,000? 
We have been cutting our budget every year for the last 3 years.  In this last year, we cut nearly nine teacher positions, which led to the loss of classes at the High School, termination of the award-winning Academy program at the Middle School, and transfer of some of our special education programs at Brook Knoll Elementary to the County Office of Education.
Unfortunately, because of unfunded mandates, we aren’t allowed to cut the most expensive services we provide.  So, the next areas we will have to cut will lead to more teacher layoffs, which will force us to increase class sizes and cut more programs.  Ultimately, this endangers the quality of education in Scotts Valley. 
What about parents, why don’t they help fill the gap? 
Actually, they do!  Over the last three years, the average of donations received has been over $800,000 per year.  Parent clubs, community service organizations, and individuals are doing their part already, but it’s still not enough to close this funding gap.
“We love our parents and the community support, but unfortunately, this is just not enough to balance the budget.”
The SOSV.net website claims that Scotts Valley schools earn the top student scores in the County.  Is this really true? 
Yes! For the last four years, our students have significantly outperformed Santa Cruz County and California state averages in both Mathematics and English Language Arts.
Wait, you’re receiving the lowest funding in the County, and delivering the highest test scores?
That’s right.  Scotts Valley schools deliver the best educational bargain in the County, with the highest student test scores, and highest rate of students graduating and moving on to college (95%), but with the lowest per pupil funding.  
So, what is Measure A asking us to pay?
At $108/parcel, we can only raise as much as $820,000/year – less than the $900,000 deficit projected for this year.   Around 20% of our community live on fixed incomes and could exempt themselves from this tax, so the actual funds we receive could be closer to $660,000, which is significantly less than $900,000/year.
Your school district is asking the community to help us, in combination with our own internal efforts, to stop our deficit spending.  We hope to be able to do better than close the gap, so we can pay our teachers a wage they deserve for the amazing work they do in your classrooms every day.  But we are sharing this responsibility with the community, not asking them to shoulder it fully.
“Families move to Scotts Valley due to the excellent reputation of our schools. We consistently outperform academically across the county, and the state. If we can’t raise necessary funding through Measure A, the quality of our student’s education is at risk. Without our award-winning schools, our community at large suffers.”
Still have questions?  Feel free to email me at rs*****@sc*************.org.
Sincerely,
Roger Snyder
Board Trustee, Scotts Valley Unified School District