Long Beach Superintendent Urges Legislature to Back Brown's Budget

As Sacramento lawmakers consider a vote that will drastically impact California education including 100 local schools, Long Beach Unified School District Superintendent Christopher J. Steinhauser called Wednesday for approval of the governor's budget.

Controversial for its boldness -- good or bad -- Gov. Jerry Brown's budget, which attempts to rescue California from fiscal disaster, calls for extending a trio of currently paid taxes and for dissolving redevelopment agencies statewide in order to redirect tax money toward education and other areas. The legislature is expected to vote on it this week.

In Long Beach, the nationally recognized district of 86,000 students and 8,000 employees has already cut a staggering amount from its $700 million budget. Nearly 1,200 employs, mostly teachers, were sent layoff notices last week. Steinhauser, widely respected for stewarding a district whose test scores have risen in even the poorest parts of the 50-square-mile city, has estimated that about 1,000 of those pink-slipped are teachers, meaning up to one-quarter of the teaching workforce. The trickle down for the local economy has not been quantified, but it clearly will impact how much those terminated workers can spend in local business.

Long Beach Unified is the city's largest employer. So educators have argued that the governor's budget can be viewed as a job preserver in Belmont Shore and surrounding neighborhoods with vital commercial districts.

"These are the worst reductions I've seen in more than 30 years in public education," Steinhauser said Wednesday. "We've cut more than $200 million since 2008.

"This has to stop.  California cannot grow its economy by neglecting its schoolchildren.  Our state must find a way to provide stable funding for education.  I support the governor's proposal to put tax extensions on the ballot.  Our public schools are at a crossroads, and we need to give voters a chance to weigh in regarding school funding."

Cities around the state have scrambled to move redevelopment property and funds out of their redevelopment-agency authority, to keep it out of Brown's reach if the state budget passes. The on Tuesday night. L.A. made the same move with $100 million. Municipalities frame the governor's budget as Sacramento raiding the locals, and the fear is not unvalidated; the legislature under former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger withheld millions from local governments in an attempt to balance a state budget now in major deficit.

Supporters of Brown's move, including the Sacramento Bee and Pulitzer Prize-winning business columnist Michael Hiltzik, argue that the value of redevelopment after 50 years remains unquantified and lacks oversight that would establish its relative value. Redevelopment is a complicated process, but its purpose was to revive urban centers by using government money to remove blight, and spur development in languishing parts of communities. It has been broadly interpreted and state Controller John Chiang just released a report that found 18 state redevelopment agencies had failed to pay, collectively, $40 million owed to local schools.

Critics of Brown's budget include anti-tax groups, business associations,  chambers of commerce and other groups opposed to the state taking over any local funds, for education or otherwise. They have framed the budget as a Sacramento takeover of funds that, through redevelopment, would rebuild communities so that neighborhoods can thrive.

Business is a big benefactor in redevelopment by intention, because city redevelopment agencies offer favorable terms and often underwrite large costs to woo industry into a declining neighborhood on grounds that the rising tide will float all boats.  (Long Beach did this with its downtown, not without controversy).

The Long Beach Redevelopment Agency was not among the violators singled out by Chiang and there is no indication that it hasn't paid what it owes schools. Belmont Shore-Naples-area Councilman Gary DeLong remarked, after the Council moved the $180 million assets into city hands, that agencies violating the law ought to be pursued.

Long Beach Unified and Steinhauser had taken no position on the redevelopment portion of the budget, largely because it is such complicated law with so many variables that it was not clear how much money the district schools would collect. But the budget cuts that are coming, if the state budget does not pass, have been estimated by LBUSD at $150 million. The state already owes LBUSD $105 million in unpaid funds.