EdSource Extra!
California schools in recent years have been coping with uncertain revenue projections and shifting state budgets, with each new budget benchmark lasting only a few months. These increasingly rapid budget cycles are administering an unprecedented dose of insecurity that makes even short term planning difficult and is having an impact on staff morale, said David Gordon, Sacramento County superintendent of schools, and formerly superintendent of the Elk Grove Unified School District, one of the largest in the state. “We now essentially have three-month budgets in the state,” said Gordon. The budget uncertainties that school districts face, he said, is “not year-to-year, it is almost month-to-month.” Noting that human nature “is averse to uncertainty,” Gordon said, “school personnel have been given dose after dose of uncertainty.” To make matters worse, California school officials now face not only the prospect of further reductions in state funds, but in federal funds as well due to the failure of …