First of two parts.
The best kind of good news washed over the School District this week when Gov. Brown’s budget was formalized for the new fiscal year 12 days away.
Six million welcome but never previously guaranteed dollars will be sailing into Supt. Dave LaRose’s vault in the coming months.
“The governor actually is fulfilling the requirements under Prop. 98,” said Mike Reynolds, assistant superintendent for business.
The new fiscal year “is a really good one for school districts. Prop. 98 (passed in 1988) is bringing in a combination of onetime ($4 million) and ongoing $2 million) funding.”
Mr. Reynolds said the School District’s estimated revenue for the present year is $60.7 million, and for next year it leaps to $67.3 million, “a significant increase.”
With two-thirds of the windfall onetime money, Mr. Reynolds said “that will allow us to invest in fixing up deferred maintenance projects that are not bond-eligible. Things that don’t last for 20 years, we do out of the General Fund,” which may have sounded like an offhand comment but was not. Hey, he is a finance guy. He specializes in precision.
It is instructive to remember that the $107 million school improvements bond issue overwhelmingly passed a year ago this month, accompanied by conditions Mr. Reynolds is about to note:
“Anything we pay for out of bond money is strictly for improvements that have a lifecycle of 20 years or more, which matches the length of the bond. This gives us money for making a lot of physical improvements to the schools that are not of the 20-year variety but which are necessary.”
That brought the discussion around to one of the School District’s throbbing headaches, the freeway-caused impure air around and in El Marino Language School.
Arrival of the widely anticipated air filtration system prototype still is on the way.
“We are working on getting that installed in the next few weeks,” Mr. Reynolds said.
(To be continued)
