With only weeks left until Congress leaves for its August recess, time is running out for major federal action to provide additional pandemic relief funding to spare California schools from damaging future budget cuts. California education leaders, teachers, parents and concerned citizens should advocate for that federal funding.
To balance the budget this year and avoid cutting school funding, the governor and legislature relied on significant and unsustainable deferred spending with the hope that new federal monies would arrive before Oct. 15.
Deferred spending sounds like a harmless technical budgeting trick, and some have described this year’s budget as providing a no-cuts budget for our schools. If Congress takes no action however, then funding shortfalls next year could push California educational programs off a fiscal cliff.
