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LAUSD Will Sue State Over $38M in Mid-Year Budget Cuts
Photo by loop_oh via Flickr
Mid-year budget cuts are coming in the state of California, and with the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) set to lose out on $38 million, Superintendent John Deasy has announced today plans to sue the state.
That $38 million is going to be taken from the LAUSD's transportation budget. "A cut of this magnitude is devastating as it would deplete half of the District’s transportation budget after it has provided half a year of transportation services," said Deasy in a statement issued today by the LAUSD. Deasy goes on to explain that it is not as simple as just cutting services, because some of the services in question are mandated by a 1981 court order regarding desegregation as well as what allows for the transportation of thousands of special needs students.
Deasy on the cuts and the mandated services:
Due to the combined mandates, the trigger cuts force the District to choose between two illegal and unconstitutional outcomes. It must either terminate its transportation services in direct violation the Crawford court order (and federal and State law), or divert precious classroom dollars from its general fund to pay for the required transportation services
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. Citing harm to their students as a consequence of these cuts, the LAUSD " will file a lawsuit tomorrow that supports our students in schools and acts aggressively to halt these devastating cuts associated with the budget triggers."
"They're not good,'' Governor Jerry Brown said of the cuts, according to City News Service. ``It's not the way we'd like to run California, but we have to live within our means.''
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