By Menaka Fernando
Special to The Outlook

May 24 -- In the first School Board meeting since Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger revised his State budget proposal, District officials and parents last week charged him with reneging on an election promise to return funds borrowed from California schools.

Under a deal made with the Education Coalition -- which consists of the teacher's union, school administrators and PTA's throughout the state -- Schwarzenegger guaranteed he would return $2 billion in Prop 98 funds when the economy was good within one to three years.

The Governor also promised that the education system would receive its normal share of Prop 98 money if tax revenues increased. While revenues have increased, the budget does not give the $3.1 billion due the schools under the deal, according to the Los Angeles Times.

"By any read of the May Revise, the governor of the state of California has completely failed" to keep his promise, Superintendent Dr. John Deasy told the board Thursday night.

Schwarzenegger has contested that school officials are "liars."

"We did not make a promise that we will give it back this year because I couldn't guarantee to give it back this year, because we didn't know how much money we'd have," he said last week at an elementary school near Sacramento, the Times reported.

The governor's proposal would have its biggest impact on the K-12 pension program, which had previously experienced a 2 percent increase over the governor's proposal in January.

Winston Braham, the district chief financial officer, said a reversal on the increase may be unconstitutional and referred to the desire of some school officials throughout the state to challenge the governor in court.

The outrage was felt by community leaders as well.

"It's all very disappointing and discouraging and shocking because he did make a deal with the education coalition ... and now to say he didn't is pretty remarkable," said Louise Jaffe, co-chair of the Community for Excellent Public Schools (CEPS).

Still, Jaffe said the issue is much bigger than the governor reversing a promise.

"The school funding is not good enough, and every single comparative measurement to other states tells us that," she said.

"There isn't the willpower and priority (at the state) to say, 'Whoa, we really got to figure out how to make sure we have to make our schools serve our students,'" she added.

CEPS will continue to build on the momentum in recent months from its partnership with the State PTA, Jaffe said. The two joined forces in April when they launched the "Caravan for Kids," which traveled to Sacramento to protest budget cuts.

Through the partnership, parents hope to lobby key legislators to vote against the governor's proposal when it faces a vote this summer, Jaffe said.

“It's just a question of how much can we do quickly," she said.