Proposition 223 | Analysis | Proposition 223 | Rebuttal to Argument in Favor |
Schools. Spending Limits on Administration.
Initiative Statute.
Argument in Favor of Proposition 223

95/5 PUTS THE MONEY WHERE THE KIDS ARE!

It's time to take control of wasteful spending by California school districts. Our tax dollars should be spent at the school sites where our children are educated, not on administrators at central offices. While the national average for administration is 4.8%, California school districts are spending twice that with a few spending as much as 20%! 95/5 will require that 95% of our school expenditures are spent on direct services to children. According to the California Legislative Analyst Office, 95/5 will shift at least a half a billion dollars a year back to our schools without a tax increase.

We need smaller class sizes, more teachers, updated textbooks, computers, after-school programs, an end to social promotions as well as cleaner and safer schools. We don't need more bureaucrats downtown who never see our children. Of course 95/5 doesn't cut essential school site personnel such as principals, nurses, teachers, bus drivers, custodians, secretaries, or any employee who directly serve our students. In fact, classrooms, computers, textbooks and school supplies are all part of the 95%. Remember, your child is our priority and 95% of all expenditures must benefit him or her.

95/5 increases the control of local communities by allocating more resources to our local schools. School boards will still decide, with local input, how to spend the 95%. School Site administration is vitally important to a well run school and is part of the 95%. Non-school site administration is also important, but school districts across our nation have proven that it can be efficiently accomplished on 5% of expenditures. When it comes to allocating the limited education budget, direct services to our children and providing clean and safe schools must be the highest priority.

And while shifting $500,000,000 plus a year to our schools to reduce class size, buy computers, books, and other needed supplies, is a huge accomplishment, the real and lasting benefit of 95/5 will be the guarantee to our citizens that 95% of all current and future education funds will be spent where all of us want it spent--at the local school site! And with this important guarantee that our children will be the priority of all school spending, the voters will now have the confidence to continue to make the necessary investment in our schools that is desperately needed to educate California's school children for the 21st century.

We have heard the voters call to cut the bureaucracy and make the children the priority of our education spending and 95/5 does exactly that.

Join Congressman Howard Berman, Assemblyman Bill Leonard, Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez, Actor Ralph Waite, Congressman Brad Sherman, San Diego Mayor Susan Golding, Chairman Big Brothers Greater L.A. Steve Soboroff, Principal Dr. Yvonne Chan, State Senators Betty Karnette, Ray Haynes and Teresa Hughes, Randy Hoffman, Mayor Stuart Siegel, Inglewood Councilman Jerome Horton, Assembly Chief of Staff Joey Hill and Businessman Claude Parrish in voting "YES" on Prop. 223 TO PUT THE MONEY WHERE THE KIDS ARE!

LOS ANGELES MAYOR RICHARD RIORDAN
UNITED STATES SENATOR DIANNE FEINSTEIN
TYRONE VAHEDI
Senior Staff, State Board of Equalization, 4th District
Proposition 223 | Analysis | Proposition 223 | Rebuttal to Argument in Favor |