Examiner Editorial: Teacher layoff-notice time is here again

As March 15 approaches, it is time again for one of the uglier rituals of the California political year — the state’s annual deadline for issuing preliminary layoff notices to public school teachers. It happens in every school district. But happily, most of the time it tends to fizzle away, as enough funding is assembled to prevent activation of all but a handful of teacher layoffs.

But this year, with record-breaking deficits afflicting every level of government and commerce, the annual school layoff ritual might be more ominous. State lawmakers are pushing to hold on to money previously guaranteed to local schools.

In San Francisco, for the second consecutive year, some 500 layoff notices are being sent out. The district expects a $24 million reduction in state funding. However, the SFUSD has one major advantage setting it apart from other California schools.

In 2003, Proposition G established a rainy-day fund that gets larger during good economic times. San Francisco schools can qualify for up to 25 percent of the fund each year. Last year’s layoffs were forestalled after the mayor and Board of Supervisors allocated $19 million from the rainy-day account.

The rainy-day balance is now approximately $92 million, and the schools have just been offered $11.5 million by Mayor Gavin Newsom, which would stave off no more than 160 of the 500 teacher and principal layoffs. But school officials were expecting a payout closer to $24 million, which would stop all this year’s layoffs. Under dispute is The City’s controversial new interpretation of how the schools’ rainy-day share should be calculated.

Next year would be the first time both San Francisco and its school district each qualify for rainy-day help. The City can take as much as 50 percent of the fund, and has already used $6 million for the midyear shortfall. Newsom estimated that if City Hall took half the remaining funding, $46 million would be left. And 25 percent of that leaves the schools approximately $11.5 million.

The Examiner is no booster of budget set-asides or of San Francisco being obligated to supplement school district funding. But the rainy-day fund is part of the City Charter, so we think Newsom and the supervisors should either follow the letter of the law or pass changes — not play games with the intent of Proposition G.

Even the measure’s author, former supervisor Tom Ammiano, says he intended the schools to get one-fourth of the whole fund — not one-fourth of anything left after The City takes its share.

And with massive annual school and municipal deficits sinking the rainy-day fund fast, Proposition G is only a short-term solution to a long-term problem that must be confronted, the sooner the better.