More than a dozen Balboa High students and a few teachers gave the San Francisco Board of Education a piece of their mind Tuesday, castigating it and Superintendent Bill Rojas for what they called overspending that may soon result in sharp cutbacks.

The students, mostly Latino, said they, not the administrators, would pay the steepest cost if the state refuses to reimburse San Francisco some $18 million it claims it is owed in desegregation funds.

“Rojas is gambling to get funding, and the people that are going to pay for his gamble are the students,” said Kate Goka, a Japanese-language teacher at Balboa.

Even as the Assembly fast-tracked a bill to restore millions of dollars in desegregation costs to San Francisco and elsewhere, the district said it was going back to U.S. District Judge William Orrick, who oversaw the 1983 settlement, to try to get the money. Rojas said the district believed Gov. Gray Davis would kill the plan, as the state Department of Finance recommends. Finance officials say the district spent more than it could have reasonably expected from the state.

The board four years ago opened Thurgood Marshall High School and has reconstituted others; it also bought other property. Rojas defended the board’s purchase of a site at 333 Grant Ave., saying that it had nothing to do with the looming cutbacks and that it did pass by a board vote of 5-2.

The Balboa group, however, asserted that money should have been better spent to avert layoffs that might be forthcoming as soon as this school year.

Filipino American teacher Conrad Benedicto said that while he agreed with Rojas about the paucity of funding from the state, he is worried that students like Balboa’s will have to pay the price—especially now that a new settlement has lifted race caps and likely will lead to less if any desegregation funding.

“When people talk about education in the Asian community, they need to look at Balboa and not just Lowell and Lincoln,” Benedicto said.

 

The $18 million shortfall, however, has nothing to do with last month’s settlement of a lawsuit filed by Chinese American parents. Both the district and the state agree that the district was entitled to desegregation funds during the years the 1983 settlement was in place- where they differ is over how much. Districts file claims with the state once they know the actual cost of the programs, so there is a lag in the payments—but critics say the district nonetheless overspent.

In 1993 and 1994, the state’s recession prompted cutbacks in funding, said Deputy Director Robert Miyoshiro. “When revenues fall short, you can’t go and tax people,” he explained.

“Money was cut all over ... districts everywhere lost funding,” said Assistant Director Sandy Harris. “Others faced hardships, but they budgeted more carefully and have gotten into less trouble.”

Even Assemblyman Kevin Shelley, the bill’s author, agreed. “Our school board and our superintendent of schools have acted very irresponsibly and very imprudently,’’ he said. “That is perhaps one of the stupidest things I’ve seen any local government body do. That’s why everyone is mad at San Francisco.’’

Though the governor has made increased education spending a big part of his platform, Harris said the department maintains that the old desegregation bills are not part of the governor’s budget. Last year, the Legislature included money in the state budget for several prior-year claims, but former Gov. Pete Wilson vetoed funding for claims from the 1994-95 and 1995-96 fiscal years because of a 1994 law limiting such reimbursements. In any case, Harris said, Davis “is not in favor of funding San Francisco’s desegregation program.”

Rojas defended the spending, saying that “the activities were happening under a clear court order. The state auditors said that these were legitimate expenditures.”

Nonetheless, school board member Eddie Chin, elected in November, said Rojas and the district had been irresponsible.

“We’re spending beyond our means,” he said. “If we don’t have the money, we can’t be going forth with a lot of these programs. Unfortunately, this impacts everybody— teachers, staff, parents and students.”

Deputy State Superintendent Henry Der said the funding dilemma contrasts the goals of the Department of Finance, which “cares about money,” and the school district, which wants to boost the “academic achievement of black, Latino, and Asian immigrant student populations.”

That goal has long been tied to $37 million in state and federal desegregation funds, which the district has acknowledged could dry up by 2002, when the 1983 consent decree officially expires. Though the district said last month that it anticipated having in place new revenue sources by that time, where that money will come from is all but clear.

“We are not relieved from our court-ordered responsibilities,” Rojas said. “We need to reach some closure.”