School Fund Allocations

Your May 17 article (“Half of Windfall Was Already Owed to Schools”) leaves readers with the clear suggestion that the Department of Finance deliberately withheld more than $1 billion from California schools by virtue of the way that state population and school enrollments are regularly updated. That suggestion is false.

The department cannot and did not “hold the money back from the schools,” as the article states, because no funds are “withheld” from schools. General purpose funds for schools’ basic educational programs are appropriated continuously from the state controller to school districts, based upon enrollment data reported to the superintendent of public instruction. When the school funding guarantee is calculated twice a year as part of the budget process, the department uses the latest available data from the superintendent to account for--or catch up with--the base funding that has already been spent.

The statement that the department has shortchanged schools by $443 million due to school attendance estimates is inaccurate. Almost $185 million of that amount reflects revised attendance estimates that affect the fiscal year that begins this coming July 1; those funds cannot be allocated to schools until the Legislature passes a new state budget. Of the remaining $258 million, which affects the current fiscal year, more than $190 million of that amount has already been allocated to schools.

As for the $576 million ascribed to “mistaken” population estimates: Our department takes into account the changes in factors that affect the state’s estimated population. Twice a year, we update our population estimates, and as required by law, these estimates are used in calculating the state’s school funding guarantee. The only change in the estimates is when additional data sources become available, which allow state demographers to better refine their estimating methods. In this year’s case, the addition of federal tax data provided a more accurate estimate of how many persons moved out of California last year.

These new data caused population estimates to change, which in turn increased the funding guarantee. Accordingly, the May revision to the budget reflects increased school spending for the past, present and coming fiscal years.

CRAIG L. BROWN

Director, Dept. of Finance

Sacramento