Good budget news for school district

From Louann Carlomagno, Superintendent, Sonoma Valley Unified School District:

Earlier this school year, I shared with educators an update regarding the passage of Prop. 30. To clarify, the passage of Prop 30 simply meant “status quo” for our school district for the 2012-13 school year. We did not receive additional funds because of the passage of this proposition – in fact, its passage actually kept us from making significant budget reductions.

As you may also remember, during numerous budget conversations in the district, we also discussed possible income from redevelopment agency funding. Last year the State of California determined that funding which had previously been used by Redevelopment Agencies should be moved to school districts. Since that time the District has been anticipating access to those redevelopment funds.

This past week the District learned that it will receive $2,367,000 in those funds. Of that, $1,221,000 is considered one-time funding and $1,145,000 will possibly become ongoing funding that will be available to the District annually. With these funds now in hand,the District anticipates working with the VMTA and CSEA to rescind the remaining unused 2012-2013 furlough days.

Additionally, these funds will provide the District and bargaining units an opportunity to review recent budget reductions and determine how these funds can best support the work of the Sonoma Valley Unified School District. As I’m sure you will agree… this is very good news!

While this is certainly good news, it should also be kept in the context that we entered this school year having cut $2,600,000. The state continues to move funds as they figure out ways to mitigate the significant cuts to education.

We are very pleased that we are able to rescind the furlough days, as keeping students in school as many days as possible is critical to our educational mission. I will keep you updated as our work moves forward.