Yesterday, the governor unveils his budget plan. In January, the governor said the state would have a $20 billion dollar surplus. Now, after the government imposed shut down, that has evolved into a projected $54.3 billion dollar deficit.
His new $203 billion dollar budget would make major funding cuts for schools, and cancel a planned boost in public pensions spending. The budget draws heavily on reserve funds and borrows money from internal accounts to cover that $54 billion dollar deficit.
Superintendent Curt Dubost predicted major cuts to spending at the Paso Robles school board meeting earlier this week. Paso Robles school district challenged because under the previous administration, superintendent Chris Williams and the school board exhausted the budget reserve. It dropped from 10%, around 6.5 million dollars when superintendent Kathy McNamara left office, to about 1.3 percent or one million dollars when Dr. Dubost took over.
It may be a challenging year for school district in the north county.
