School District Braces for More Massive Budget Cuts

Barely regaining its fiscal footing after months of budgetary confusion and a particularly bloody budget-slashing late last spring, the Santa Barbara School District bean-counters were dealt yet another brutal blow on Saturday-this time at the hands of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Part of a plan as controversial as it is ambitious, Schwarzenegger signed his deficit-defeating state budget bills into reality over the weekend. With billions of dollars of the cuts aimed at education-specifically the funding promised by Proposition 98-Santa Barbara district officials consequently announced this week that they will be forced to make some $4 million in cuts to programs and personnel this spring. Superintendent Brian Sarvis solemnly stated the obvious at an emergency afternoon meeting on Tuesday, February 19, saying, “There is no doubt that this is a fairly devastating blow to our district budget.”

Just last April, the district’s Board of Education reluctantly made about $2.5 million in cuts from the $125 million annual operating budget in order to meet the state-mandated 3 percent reserve. Much to the surprise of board members and the public alike, the ensuing months saw the district discover varying amounts of surplus cash, and a rather lengthy auditing process ensued. In the end, roughly $2 million of the cuts remained-though Sarvis said only one actual teaching job was lost.