Pass / Fail | So Cal education, LAUSD, the Cal States and the UCs
Education

Draft budget reveals LA schools short librarians, nurses, counselors



Photo by Tim/assortedstuff via Flickr Creative Commons

Listen to

03:18
Download this 1MB

Despite a $330 million bump in state funds, a preliminary budget for each Los Angeles Unified school reveals many students will go without some services, like libraries, nurses and counselors. The public gets its last chance to comment on the proposed budget at Tuesday's school board meeting.

According to the proposal, nurses will shuttle between multiple campuses - and the district is still shy dozens librarians needed to open all the shuttered middle school libraries. 

DATABASE: Look up your school's proposed budget

Mental health services continue to be limited to only the most severely disabled children, with a ration of one psychiatric social worker per 2,200 students. 

Many school principals barely have the funds to hold on to teachers, and hundreds will run into the red this year, failing to meet pension obligations. 

As expected, teachers are by far the largest expense on each campus. For every $1 spent on principals, $13 is spent on teachers. 

But a look at  individual school budgets provides only part of the picture. Of the nearly $7.5 billion the district will take in from the state and Federal government and other sources, $4.6 billion trickles down to individual campuses for staff and material purchases.

A select 37 high-needs schools will see the fruits of more state funds. They'll have more counselors, administrators and special education services.

The other nearly $3 billion will  fund district-wide expenses such as expansion of arts, paying for access to the Internet and litigation. 

Teachers have been complaining about insect and rodent infested classrooms now that breakfast in served to students at their desk,  but the custodial budgets for schools remains the same as last year, an average of $150,000 per campus. 

The preliminary budget for each school was released just days ahead of the school board's Tuesday meeting. Want to find your school's budget? It's here.