It's called "the alligator nautical chart" because it looks like a reptile's gaping maw. Nicknamed by its creator, the Sacramento-based pedagogy consulting firm School Services of California, it's one graph that voters should clip on their refrigerators to remind them what's at stake this November when they consider more money for 1000-12 schools. School Services shared an updated version with district officials recently during its almanac budget direction seminars around the land.

If the governor's tax initiative fails, the gap between what is statutorily owed K-12 schools and what they will receive will be a record gap of $1,944: a deficit factor of 28.8 percent. Source: School Services of California, Inc. (Click to enlarge.)

If the governor'southward tax initiative fails, the gap between what is statutorily owed Grand-12 schools and what they will receive volition be a tape gap of $i,944 per student: a arrears factor of 28.8 pct. Source: School Services of California, Inc. (Click to overstate.)

California'south school funding law, Proposition 98, is circuitous, and the Legislature has tortured the linguistic communication to brand it more abstract. The alligator chart cuts through circumlocution to visually capture  how much money has been cutting since 2007-08, the last twelvemonth that the Legislature funded schools without IOUs for lost toll-of-living increases or direct cuts. Since then, the difference between what schools were entitled to receive (tip of the snout of the alligator's open oral cavity) and what they accept gotten (the yawning bottom jaw) has grown ominously big.

The nautical chart shows that the average unified district should receive $vi,748 per student this year in its acquirement limit allocation – unrestricted money that districts can use as they choose to keep the lights on and pay teachers. Instead, districts will receive 22.four percent less, $5,245 – just merely if the governor'south tax initiative, Proposition 30, raising the sales taxation and income tax on the wealthy,  passes.

And if Prop 30 (or Prop 38, attorney Molly Munger's tax proposal, promising even more money to schools) fails, then in that location will be an boosted $441 cutting – 6 per centum more – midyear, lowering per-student revenue this year to $4,804. The deficit factor, the gap between what schools should go by law and what they will get, will be an all-time high of 28.viii percent: $ane,944 per student. A footling more than half of that is due to unappropriated price-of-living increases statutorily guaranteed by Proposition 98. The other half is from actual cuts in spending over the past six years.

As the chart shows, schools were also cut dramatically in 2009-10, when the acquirement limit per student shriveled to $4,981. Merely much of that blow was softened by an infusion of federal anti-recession dollars via the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act – coin that's no longer around.

The revenue limit constitutes 79 percentage of unrestricted dollars that districts get; other sources include the land lottery, reimbursements for mandated costs, and local sources such as unrestricted bundle taxes.

And unrestricted dollars comprise 73 per centum of total dollars that districts receive. The other 27 per centum must be spent for designated purposes; they include federal Title I dollars for low-income children, special education coin, and state categorical programs, which as well have been cut twenty percent.

Simply revenue-limit dollars are the staff of life and butter of commune spending – what volition determine whether districts remain solvent.

The alligator nautical chart will vary for elementary districts, which receive a smaller revenue limit than unified districts, and loftier school districts, which receive more than. Thus, according to School Services, if Prop 30 fails, high school districts would lose $507 per educatee midyear, compared with $422 per student for uncomplicated districts and $441 for unified districts.

Proposition 98 requires that the country accelerate repayment of IOUs to K-12 schools and community colleges when revenues increase. The  land Department of Finance is projecting that betwixt extra revenues from higher taxes under Proffer 30 and a recovering economic system, revenues to schools will increase $17 billion over the next iv years, to $64 billion, and the deficit factor will be erased in 7 years. Only this assumes that the governor and Legislature will follow the spirit equally well as the manipulable  requirements of Prop 98. A big "if," perhaps.

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