Didn’t Gov. Jerry Brown just spend six months on the campaign trail at our college campuses telling students over and over again how Proposition 30 was going to save our schools from some terrible cuts?
Well Prop. 30 passed, and the state government is expected to collect as much as $60 billion in new taxes as a result.
A deal is a deal right? We, the students, helped pass the tax increase but out of the $6 billion that Prop. 30 will bring in this year, the UC schools are only getting $125 million. When you add up all the money going to the UCs, Cal State Universities, community colleges and K-12 schools, public education is getting barely half of all the new tax money.
So why isn’t all that new money going to education as promised and more importantly, where is it going?
Well, Gov. Brown and the Democrats who run the state legislature seem to have forgotten their promise and are spending the money on other pet projects. According to the Governor’s 2013-14 budget:
— $502 million in additional spending per year on state employee raises
— $1.2 billion additional spending per year for Medi-Cal, CalWorks and In-Home Services
— $3.1 billion in additional spending for the Governor’s High Speed Rail Program
California schools have been hit hard in recent years. Budget cuts, tuition jumps and teacher pink slips have become the norm. Prop. 30 was supposed to fix all that.
It is time that we students begin asking the Governor what happened to that promise? When will education truly be a priority? And when can we expect the rest of that money?
Rosie Dale
Fourth-year political science and psychology double major
