Too early, says the funds-starved School District, to make a judgment on Gov. Brown’s almost breathlessly awaited May Revision budget issued yesterday.
Ali Delawalla, Assistant Superintendent for Business Services, the numbers guy, said this morning he will not truly be prepared to offer a reflective evaluation before next Tuesday night’s 7 o’clock School Board meeting in Council Chambers.
He declined to comment about the impact on potential layoffs until he has investigated the data more thoroughly.
Preliminary talk from Sacramento and elsewhere is that school districts will profit slightly more than anticipated because of unexpected revenues.
But with the dense, often un-navigable labyrinth of rabbit warrens that funding must travel through en route to its campus destinations, projections after just glancing at the worksheet pack high-powered risks. Upon further consideration, Mr. Delawalla said that even though the numbers carry a freshly painted glow, yesterday’s version was scarcely distinctive from Gov. Brown’s opening volley last January. He was more definite.
“No change from what he first proposed,” Mr. Delawalla concluded.
The half-dozen billions of supposedly found money lately discovered was a pleasant surprise, the administrator said. “What the governor has done is to take the deferral and replace it with the revenue.
“In a way it is good we are not going to have as much deferral because,” said Mr. Delawalla, “it amounts to an accounting gimmick.”
