Take Action ! Home to School Transportation Funding Eliminated!

Department of Finance Pulls the Trigger – Eliminates Home to School Transportation Funding

 

December 13, 2011

 

Today, the Department of Finance released more optimistic revenue projections than those previously offered by the Legislative Analyst’s Office. Unfortunately, the projections were not good enough to prevent pulling some of the K-12 education triggers.  In addition to cuts to community colleges, social service and higher education, the Director of the Department of Finance triggered the complete elimination of the remaining home to school transportation funds ($248 million) as well as a cut of nearly $80 million to revenue limit funding. The higher revenue projections largely spared school districts from a possible $1.5 billion cut to revenue limits.

 

The cut to transportation has a disproportionate negative impact on low income families; it will force thousands of students to walk to school through dangerous areas and could result in the layoff of thousands of classified employees.  School transportation departments cannot absorb such a deep cut without devastating consequences, so CSEA is working hard to convince the governor and Legislature to find an alternative solution.

 

A fairer solution would be to roll the transportation cut into the revenue limit cut – which allows districts to better allocate the reduction in a way that protects local priorities. At a minimum, making the transportation cut proportional to the others in Tier 2 would go a long way to preserve transportation and other programs that would be impacted by the elimination of transportation funding.

 

We can still convince the governor and state lawmakers that this is a budget cut California can’t afford—but we need to act now. Call your legislators today and urge them to mitigate the cuts to transportation.

 

Let’s show that we are united in our effort to support our co-workers in transportation. Please pass the word on to others at your worksite, and join hundreds of thousands of CSEA members in making three phone calls to show that you are a part of our united effort to stop this catastrophic cut.

 

CSEA leaders and staff are coordinating our efforts to fight these cuts on multiple fronts. CSEA is working with the Department of Finance and Legislative leaders on possible alternatives, and we have the strong support of State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson. We are leading a coalition of statewide and local stakeholders, including transportation officials, superintendents, and others, to educate and activate our communities and legislators against these destructive cuts, including local lobbying visits and press events.

 

If you have not taken action yet, please help our efforts by making three critical phone calls. It should only take a few minutes of your time to call the governor, your state Assembly member and your state Senator to leave a message.

 

Find your representatives with CSEA Capitol Connection.

 

We can save the big, yellow school bus for generations to come—all it takes is three short phone calls from you.

 

Please call Governor Brown and your state legislators.

Tell them to save our school buses and stop cutting our schools.

State Superintendent Supports The Big Yellow Bus

Stop school transportation cuts

CALL THE GOVERNOR & YOUR STATE LEGISLATORS

As part of the budget they approved last July, state lawmakers are set to cut off all funding for school transportation in January—unless we act now to save our school buses!

 Any day now, the state Department of Finance is expected to determine the actual amount of budget trigger cuts. If revenues are off estimates by more than $2 billion, one of the triggers calls for the elimination of school transportation funding for the remainder of the school year.

 Don’t leave our kids out on the street

School transportation departments cannot absorb such a deep cut without devastating consequences, so CSEA is working hard to convince the governor and Legislature to find an alternative solution.

“Thousands of kids could be forced out of the safety of a school bus, but we can stop this from happening,” says CSEA President Allan Clark. “No one expected to have to make this cut when the budget was passed, and legislators still have an opportunity to correct this short-sighted mistake when they return to Sacramento in January.”

We only have a short time to act!

There’s still time to convince the governor and state lawmakers that this is a budget cut California can’t afford—but we need to act now. Call your legislators today and urge them to seek alternatives.

 Let’s show that we are united in our effort to support our co-workers in transportation. Please pass the word on to others at your work site, and join hundreds of thousands of CSEA members in making three phone calls to show that you are a part of our united effort to stop this catastrophic cut.

 Save the big, yellow school bus

CSEA leaders and staff are coordinating our efforts to fight these cuts on multiple fronts. CSEA continues to meet with the Department of Finance and staff for the Legislative leaders, and we have the strong support of State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson. We are leading a coalition of statewide and local stakeholders to educate and activate our communities and legislators against these destructive cuts.

Would you please help our efforts by making three critical phone calls? It should only take a few minutes of your time to call the governor , your state Assembly member and your state Senator to leave a message.

CALL THE GOVERNOR’S OFFICE: (916) 445-2841

Click here to find your Representative:

http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/yourleg.html

We can save the big, yellow school bus for generations to come—all it takes is three short phone calls from you.

Allyson Holt

CSEA Chapter, 293, President
PAC Region 22, Area H.

CSEA Sock Tree Is Here

Legend of the CSEA Sock Tree

Once upon a time, there was a nice lady named Gussie Morgan.  Gussie worked in the special education office as a secretary, and she proudly served on her CSEA chapter executive board as Secretary. 

During the holiday season, Gussie and her coworkers wanted to help others in their community, so they contacted charities and community service organizations to find out what was needed.  Over and over,

PYLUSD thanks Peltzer Pines

they were told that people donate clothing and shoes, but never socks or undergarments.  

The special education office organized a sock drive, and at some point over the next couple years Gussie had the idea to hang them on a tree. 

Gussie retired in 1988, but CSEA has not forgotten her.  To this day, the Chapter executive officers get a live tree to decorate the District office, and hang donated socks on it.  Right before Christmas break, the tree is delivered to a family in our area, and the socks are taken to a charitable organization.  Over the years, we have worked with HIS House, Victory Outreach, and our own McKinney/Vento program (for homeless students & their families).

Please send new, unwrapped socks to the District Office, attention Marsha in Personnel or Cheryl in Accounting. The tree is in the lobby by the Board Room (warehouse building).

THANK YOU for your generosity

to those less fortunate.

If you have any questions, please call Cheryl in Accounting at ext. 82425.

Chapter Meeting For December

Meeting Reminder

Please remember that Monday, December 12th, will be our next chapter meeting.

We will discuss the trainings that have been completed, and the ones that are planned for 2012. Please come and find out what that mailer was that the district sent to your home. You might want to learn about accident reports, and when to use them.

Our meeting will begin at 5:15 pm.

Site Reps can start meeting at 4:45 for Q&A, or just for advice and support.

Please check back to this site for updates.

The ESC is located at 4999 Casa Loma Avenue, in the city of Yorba Linda.

The Governor’s Pension Proposal

PAC News Flash: Update on Pension

Yesterday, the Legislature held a special hearing in Sacramento to review the Governor’sPension proposal.  In brief, the Governor proposed a 12-point pension plan that includes:

• Equal sharing of pension costs between employer and employees;
• Creating ‘hybrid’ pension system for new employees;
• Increasing the retirement age for new employees from 55 to 67;
• Requiring benefits to be calculated based on the three final years compensation;
• Requiring benefits to based on regular pay to stop spiking;
• Limiting post retirement employment to about 960 hours;
• Requiring felons to forfeit pension benefits;
• Prohibiting retroactive pension increase;
• Prohibiting pension holidays;
• Prohibiting purchases of ‘air time’;
• Changing pension boards to increase independence and expertise; and
• Reducing retiree health care costs.

Prior to and during the hearing, CSEA and our partners in the Californian for Retirement Security Coalition held a press conference to continue to make our case to the press and the general public that:

• Despite of the sensational headlines on pension abuses and public employees getting six-figure pensions, only 2% of retirees in the CalPERS system fall in this category.  The average state retiree has pension of about 50 percent or less of their pay — or about $25,000 a year — after serving the state for what is typically two or three decades.  The average classified employee pension is about $1,200 a month.

• Pension costs amount to just 3 percent of the state budget — a percentage that has actually fallen $600 million over the past two years. In fact, the State of California pays less as a percentage of payroll today than it did in the early1980s.

• Therein no major crisis looming for our pension fund and no reason to question the long-term sustainability of CalPERS. Despite a ruthless campaign by out-of-state billionaires to generate sensational headlines based on faulty assumptions, CalPERS is not bankrupting the state.

• While401(k) plans serve as a valuable supplement to employee pensions, they should not replace the defined benefit plan.  Anyone, with their pension savings locked into insecure 401(k)-type defined contribution plans, knows how precarious it is to be at the mercy of the increasingly volatile markets.

• For school employees and other public workers, pensions are part and parcel of a larger wage and compensation structure, and collective bargaining must remain central to the process.  Public employers and the unions that represent their workers must maintain the authority to negotiate over pensions.
• We support tough action to curb pension spiking and to pound down the pensions of the small number of public workers — mostly senior officials — with oversized pensions. But it’s unfair to ask the rest of California’s public employees to shoulder the burden caused by Wall Street’s greed and recklessness.

What’s Next?

CSEA is also carefully watching two other pension proposals that have been submitted to the Secretary of State.  These would become future ballot initiatives in the November General Election in 2012, if they manage to collect about 500,000 signatures.

The major provisions of the first proposal would essentially eliminate defined benefit pensions for all new employees.  For existing employees,it would impair current benefits and force existing employees to make increasingly higher contributions (increasing by 3% annually) until unfunded liabilities are reduced.

The major provisions of the second proposal would essentially eliminate defined benefit pensions for all new employees, and allow the Legislature to enact a hybrid pension plan.  It also impairs current benefits, and raises the normal retirement age to 67 with 35 years of service.  It also caps the defined benefits, and sets the minimum retirement age to 63.

At this moment, these proposals are already being amended.  It is likely that many of these proposals are simply illegal.  They will cost taxpayers more in the long run.  CSEA and our coalition partners are still studying the impact of these proposals, and we will work with the Legislature and Governor to craft a sensible and reasonable solution to address the abuses in the pension system.

We will keep you updated in the weeks and months ahead on the many activities that we are undertaking: protecting our school transportation funding in the budget,fighting against unreasonable pension changes, and assessing the impact of the many revenue proposals that are coming out.

If you wish to comment or would like additional information, please contact:

CSEA is NOT done – with SB 161

Governor Signed SB 161

Gov. Jerry Brown has signed SB 161, which would allow classified school employees to volunteer to inject epileptic students with Diastat. CSEA and a coalition of major labor and healthcare organizations opposed this bill.

Although the governor signed the bill, CSEA and its partners who stood against it obtained several amendments to protect school employees. CSEA will soon be releasing guidance about the bill for classified school employees.

Contributed by Linda Sandoval

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