Schools Ready for New State Funds

The proposed state budget includes new money for California schools and this year, it’s guaranteed by voters who supported a tax increase specifically for educational funding. The Santa Barbara School District, like others, says it’s ready for the financial help.”So this is real investment,” said California Governor Jerry Brown. He asked voters to support a sales tax increase which appeared as Proposition 30 on the November 2012 ballot and it passed, starting the flow of funds directly to the school.Brown said, “they voted for the tax measure we’re putting the money into the schools as I said but we’re also not playing the game of spending money we don’t have.”In the Santa Barbara School District, Superintendent, Dr. David Cash said, ” it’s fairly clear he has come through to restore funding to K-12 education. This is the first positive step in K -12 education in at least four years.”The school district says funds cut out in the past five years due to the budget downfall will be coming back. How much is still being worked out, but they have a wish list when the money arrives.Cash says he wants to see more hands on programs for the students in areas that would include science. “Hopefully this will allow us to fund to give kids an opportunity to do sciences, that’s what we want to see up and down our system,” said Cash. “We want to restore programs that we had to eliminate and we would love to improve the lives of our employees,” he said.KEY News Senior Reporter John Palminteri has our story.