Having served on the Palo Alto School Board for eight years, I understand how critical this money is to basic aid school districts in the South Bay and on the Peninsula. I oppose the administration's proposal, and I will fight attempts to take this money.

As chair of the Assembly Budget Subcommittee on Education Finance, I understand that the state faces an extraordinary challenge in balancing its budget and in meeting the needs of kids and schools in the coming years. I also understand the administration's position that every school district must share in the solution, including reductions in the level of state funding. Nevertheless, I am forced to oppose the administration's proposal for the following reasons:

1—It is a taking of local property taxes. What is proposed is not a reduction of state support to 50-plus basic aid school districts, it is a taking of local property tax revenues. At the risk of stating the obvious, the state can't reduce funding it doesn't provide.

2—Taxpayers in the districts are already doing their fair share. In fact, taxpayers in these districts are already doing their fair share, and then some, in terms of funding public education. In the other 95 percent of the districts around the state, local property taxes only pay for a portion (roughly 46 percent) of their per-pupil revenue entitlement. That leaves the state to pick up the remaining costs, to the tune of $15 billion annually. By way of contrast, basic aid districts with excess property taxes receive no state support to meet each pupil's revenue-limit entitlement—because the local district is already picking up 100 percent of that cost.

3—Not all basic aid districts are "prosperous" districts. Some basic aid school districts have achieved basic aid status simply because their established per pupil revenue limit (i.e. funding level) is so low it doesn't take much in the way of property tax revenue to exceed the per pupil revenue limit. In fact, I represent at least one basic aid school district with a revenue limit so low that if its "excess" property tax is captured by the state, the district will then qualify for state-funded equalization aid to raise per pupil funding. In fact, more than half of the basic aid districts around the state would become "low-wealth" districts eligible for such aid if the administration's proposal was adopted.

4—Not all basic aid students are "prosperous" students. Even districts with relatively high assessed property value may serve substantial numbers of low and very low income students—in schools with sufficiently large numbers of such students that they qualify for Federal Title I funds (for educationally disadvantaged students).

5—We must equalize up, not down. My concern for and commitment to the needs of students in low-wealth districts is longstanding, as evidence by my bill, AB 441, which began the process of raising the per pupil expenditure in such districts in 2001-02. The administration's proposal, contrary to that goal, is effectively a leveling down approach.

6—Not a single California school would be better off than it is today. The proposed capture of local property taxes deciminates the core instructional program in a 50-plus basic aid school districts with no tangible benefit to other kids or school districts around the state. It simply tosses $126 million of somebody else's money into the black hole that is the state budget deficit.

7—It sets a bad precedent. Once the state decides it's OK to take a local district's locally-generated property taxes, what's to stop the state from laying claim to the additional property tax revenue generated by local parcel taxes approved in non-basic aid districts around the state?

8—Not just damaging, but undoable. Given the requirements of the state law, and the planning that the schools must do for the upcoming school year, there is no realistic or feasible way for basic aid districts to cut their programs by 20, 30 or even 40 percent in the coming year. This is a particularly true given the fact that if recent history is any guide, the budget won't be passed and this issue won't be resolved until well after the coming fiscal/school year is already under way.

We face hard times—I know that only too well. Regrettably, public education will not be immune. To their credit, teachers, parents, students and community members around the state are willing to work through it—to do the best they can with reduced support from the state. But to reiterate, this is not a cut in state funding, it's a taking of local property taxes. However well-intended the proposal may have been, it is the wrong approach to solving the state budget crisis.

I oppose the taking of local property tax revenues from our basic aid school districts. I will work to persuade the administration to withdraw it's proposal prior to the release of the May Revise (the administration's updated budget proposal scheduled for early May). If such efforts are unsuccessful, I will oppose the measure as it makes its way through the budget process.

Assemblymen Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto, represents the 21st Assembly District in San Mateo and Santa Clara counties.