have said the amount of funding given to schools will not be decreased, increasing the donation is not likely.
“I’m sure the council wants to do all it can to help the schools,” said Bloom, whose two children attend local public schools. “But this is a difficult budget year for the city as it is for the school district.”
Including its annual donation, the City this year is spending $7.5 million on school-liked youth programs and another $7.4 million on non-school related youth programs, according to city documents.
Increasing what the City gives to the school district could diminish many of those other social service programs currently being offered, officials said.
“If you increase funding to one organization, it’s going to be taken away from another,” said City Manager Susan McCarthy.
Councilman Mike Feinstein said the City has consistently made its schools and its youth a high priority.
“This city has been a model city when it comes to supporting its youth,” he said. “It’s important that when people compare Beverly Hills to Santa Monica, that Beverly Hills doesn’t fund the array of social service programs for our youth that we do.”
But many protesters said it’s time for the City Council to rethink how its spends money and education should be at the top of that list.
“We are in there every day in front of the students and they deserve a quality education,” said Eric Paul, a fifth-grade teacher at Roosevelt Elementary School. “To not give them that would be a mixed up priority.”
Many of the students at the event said they have noticed the loss of supplies in their classrooms. Others said they feared for their teachers’ jobs.
“I have a really nice teacher,” said Chris Simmens, a 10-year-old fifth-grader at SMASH elementary school. “And if she loses her job, it would really suck.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on January 15, 2003. Read the original PDF.