Some budget stats to consider. Here’s the breakdown of the Big 4 for 2010/2011:

Education (K-12 & Higher Ed.): 40%
Health & Human Services: 28%
Bus., Transportation & Housing: 10%
Corrections & Rehab: 7%

That’s 85% of CA’s budget right there. So that’s where you have to cut. Everything else is just fiddling around at the edges.

The big whopper, of course, is education. Interestingly, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, instructional spending comprises just 54% of per-pupil spending in CA for K-12. The other 46% is administration. Per-pupil K-12 spending is going to be roughly $11,200 this year. That means that there’s about $6,000 of ADMINISTRATIVE expense for every K-12 student in CA. Sacramento, we have a problem. But I think I know where we can find some cuts for the budget. And it starts in the administrative bureaucracy that is the CA Dept. of Education.

I’m going to research this a bit, but I bet that the education budget for CA has increased over the last 12 years at a FAR higher rate than the sum of student population growth plus inflation. And I think I know where most of that ended up. And it ain’t in the classroom.