LAUSD Board Approves Budget, Rescues Afterschool Programs

The LAUSD Board of Education has approved a $6.03-billion budget for the 2012-2013 fiscal year.

Thursday's vote by the seven-member board was 6-1. 

The budget closed a $390-million deficit the District faced in the coming
fiscal year, which begins Sunday, according to Tom Waldman, LAUSD's
director of media and communications.

The board's 6-1 vote, with South Bay representative Richard Vladovic dissenting, capped an eleventh-hour scramble to salvage LAUSD's Beyond the Bell afterschool program that runs from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. on weekdays at elementary and middle schools in the District.

About $4 million for the afterschool program, which costs a little more than $6 million, will come from money the District had set aside to put a parcel tax on the 2013 ballot, although LAUSD officials are still considering that plan. The balance will come from an unexpected surplus in preschool revenue in the state budget that Gov. Jerry Brown signed on Wednesday.

LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy credited teachers and other unionized
employees for choosing to cut their salaries by working five fewer days to allow the district to reduce spending significantly.

Read the Daily News' full accounting of the story here.