> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.smdp.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Spirit of 76 leaving schools concerned - URL: https://www.smdp.com/spirit-of-76-leaving-schools-concerned/ - Published: 2005-09-02T15:00:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-23T07:38:52.000Z - Author: Ryan Hyatt - Tags: Education, Malibu, #archive-import *District mighty concerned over Prop. 76* The biggest threat to the success of the Santa Monica school system in the next few years is the governor of California, whose special election seeks to undermine public education, local officials say. Santa Monica-Malibu Unif ied School district officials said the most significant impediment to the schools’ progress may be the outcome of the November special election called by California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. In particular, local school officials are concerned that Proposition 76, if approved, will strip K-12 funding throughout the state and devastate public education in California. Statements from the governor’s office regarding Proposition 76, which Schwarz enegger has dubbed the “Live Within Our Means Act,” says it will improve the manner in which the state manages its financial affairs by preparing a “rainy day fund” for future economic downturns. It also would allow Schwarzenegger to make mid-year cuts to some groups that receive funding, such as teachers. Darrel Ng, a Schwarzenegger campaign spokesperson, said that state revenues since 2000 have increased by $12.5 billion, while expenditures have increased by $23.5 billion. Proposition 76 is intended to stabilize revenue over a period of years, so California won’t spend more than it takes in. The ballot measure would also eliminate one of the major ways to reduce education funding, Ng said. SMMUSD superintendent John Deasy disagrees with that assessment. “If Prop. 76 is approved, all bets are off,” Deasy said. “One need only look at the legislative analysis to see it would deeply cut funding to public education.” Since Schwarzenegger took office, schools have been required to operate on a business model in which money districts save by cost-cutting measures one year, can be used the following year. Deasy said the model has its merits. For example, by sticking to the strict guidelines, the SMMUSD has been able to achieve a $1 million surplus in revenue for the first time in years. Then again, the district has the good fortune of being subsidized $6 million per year by City Hall over the next 10 years, in order to maintain the high level of programming residents expect. Poorer school districts — in parts of Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco — aren’t so lucky. If Proposition 76 is approved, it will be “catastrophic” to those areas, Deasy said, many of which already teeter on bankruptcy. However, Deasy said there’s a greater problem with the governor’s “business model” approach to public education, an issue that his special election intends to sweep under the rug. “Public schools, unlike regular businesses, aren’t intended by law to be revenue-generating enterprises,” Deasy said. “Costs can be a factor, but they shouldn’t supersede the state’s goal of providing the best education possible to all of its students.” Deasy noted Schwarzenegger’s three children attend private schools, the cost of which rose by 9 percent last year. The tuition increase is attributable to factors also affecting public education, Deasy said, such as the cost of health care for teachers. Approval of the ballot measure would also allow the governor to restrict funding mid-year to schools, Deasy said. “Technically, he’d be able to cut funding to teachers,” Deasy said. “OK, you get rid of the teachers. Then what? You still have all of the students. Then what? You put them all into an auditorium? I wouldn’t allow that for my kid.” In addition, Deasy said any attempts by the governor to claim Proposition 76 would help students is false, if one only looks at his track record. Since the governor has been in office, public schools haven’t received money he promised from Proposition 98 funding. It’s such a sore point among educators they have decided to sue him. The lawsuit, filed by the California Teachers Association in Sacramento Superior Court on Aug. 16, states Schwarzenegger failed to provide the minimum school funding guaranteed under voter-approved Proposition 98 and mandated by the state constitution. Specifically, the suit claims the schools have been funded at a combined level of $3.1 billion below what is required by state law for the last and next fiscal years. In January of 2004, Schwarzenegger made an agreement with the education community in which he said if public schools gave $2 billion to help balance the budget, that money would be restored when revenues increased. The lawsuit asserts state revenues increased under the agreement and that Proposition 98 and Chapter 213 schools were entitled to a share of those additional revenues they didn’t receive. Deasy, frustrated with Schwarzenegger and his empty promises, said he and other educators have sent letters to the governor requesting he re-consider his policies. However, educators seem unable to convince Schwarzenegger they know what they’re talking about, since the policies he’s fostering continue to exacerbate the state’s public education crisis, Deasy said. Once the star of public education in the 1970s, California only performs better these days than Louisiana and Mississippi, according to a recent RAND report, which correlates the decline with inadequate funding. It’s a point Deasy believes the governor will continue to ignore. “If the governor were really interested in having California ‘live within its means,’ he wouldn’t waste all of those millions of dollars of taxpayer money funding the special election,” Deasy said. “He’d put it into the schools, health and child care, where it’s needed.” *Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on September 2, 2005.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/090205.pdf?ref=smdp.com)