Temecula Valley Unified School District: Reports

Budget and Financial Reports

Reports

Proposition 30

Reports

Budget Update

On June 15, 2014 the State legislature approved a budget forwarded by the Budget Conference Committee and sent it to the Governor’s Office for his signature, which is anticipated shortly. The proposed budget does not bode well for TVUSD. This is primarily due to changes in what the district will be required to pay toward every certificated employee’s state retirement plan.

Increased costs are being given to the state, school district employees, and school districts as employers to ensure that CALSTRS (the teacher retirement program) becomes more fully funded and remains viable long into the future. The largest increase is being placed on public school districts as employers, and the anticipated contributions will increase from 8.25% (of a teacher’s annual salary) for the coming school year, up to 19.1% in 2020-2021. The combined annual contribution from all sources will grow from $2.2 billion to nearly $6 billion, with the increases phased in over seven years. For school districts, this is a significant increase in contributions, and while the need to address long term liabilities was recognized by all with connections in education, this substantial increase has most districts altering adopted budgets for the coming year. The impact for TVUSD is estimated to cost an additional six million dollars more than originally budgeted over the next three years. It is a significant amount, one that was not anticipated at this level, and that will require both immediate budget revisions and long term financial commitments.

The proposed budget also alters funding for all districts and applies fewer dollars to the state’s current debt levels while increasing education funding in general. These changes include the following, though at this time the dollar increase to TVUSD has not been specified: