School funding hard to budget

As students head back to school this week and next, Fallbrook and Bonsall district superintendents await approval of the $102.8 billion California state budget, which includes $66.3 billion for K-12 education programs. On August 13, the state budget was more than six weeks overdue, held up by the Senate Republican Caucus. Without state senate approval, funding grinds to a halt.

School districts don’t have the leeway to delay approval of their budgets past July 1. “It’s the law,” says Wayne Jones, assistant superintendent at Bonsall. Not so with the state. Their previous record for holding out...