Brown’s budget good news for education
By Jessica Calefati and Josh Richman, San Jose Mercury News
SACRAMENTO– Gov. Jerry Brown released a revised state budget proposal Thursday that sinks billions in better-than-expected tax revenues into California’s public schools and some tax relief for the state’s poorest families. But it still didn’t satisfy Democratic lawmakers who want to mend the state’s shredded social safety net.
The budget also includes a deal with University of California President Janet Napolitano, who had demanded more than the $120 million increase for her system in Brown’s January budget to stave off 5 percent tuition hikes in each of the next five years.
Tuition will remain flat for the next two years, in exchange for the state paying down some of the university’s long-term pension liabilities, Brown said.
The governor is also proposing creating a state Earned Income Tax Credit that’s expected to help close to one million of the state’s poorest working families. It will cost $380 million the first year and provide credits of up to $2,653 annually.
The state’s public schools will receive the bulk of the rest under Proposition 98, the statewide ballot measure passed in 1988 that establishes a minimum annual funding level for K-12 schools and community colleges. And another chunk of change must be saved for a rainy day under a constitutional amendment voters approved in November.
The budget is “definitely on the rebound” after years of being mired in red ink, Brown said Thursday, and is focused on “the fundamentals of what government is supposed to do, health and education.”
