Among the program reductions signed into law by California Gov. Gray Davis March 18 was a $11.6-million cut in funding for school library media materials. The bill package was passed by lawmakers to address the state’s $35-billion budget shortfall.
At the beginning of the 2002–03 budget year, state funding for school library materials stood at $158.5 million. However, California School Library Association Executive Director Penny Kastanis told American Libraries that last summer the legislature slashed the amount by 80%, to $24.2 million. The recent cut brings the overall reduction to 94%.
As work begins on the 2003–04 budget, CSLA is hoping to retain the separate budgetary line item for library materials that was instituted four years ago; before then, they were funded along with instructional materials, and library items usually received short shrift against textbooks, Kastanis explained. Right now there are 62 categorical programs funded for schools, and a proposal has been made to combine them into one huge block grant in order to give individual schools more flexibility. “If they dump us into that . . . the line item disappears,” said Kastanis.
Posted March 24, 2003.