Brown not shooting straight on tax plan

The governor keeps insisting that his proposal to temporarily raise taxes would go to K-12 school and community colleges, but LAT columnist George Skelton says that's not really true (though he adds that he would still vote for the measure if it winds up on the ballot).

To believe that all of Brown's new revenue would go to schools, you'd have to buy into the legitimacy of giving with one hand and taking with the other. Put it this way: Technically, all of the new money would be spent on schools. But some of the old money that now goes into the schools kitty no longer would. It would stay in the state's general fund for budget-balancing. Bait and switch. In Sacramento, they call that "back-filling." Take away one pot of money and replace it with another.

California school financing is extremely complicated, primarily due to the funding guarantee of Proposition 98, an initiative passed by voters in 1988. The shorthand explanation of Prop. 98 is that it guarantees schools and community colleges a portion of the general fund -- 40%, give or take. The figure bounces around. Don't ask. This stuff is tall weeds growing in a deep swamp. We'll just say that by increasing general fund revenue, the minimum guarantee for schools also rises. And under Brown's plan, schools would get that extra guaranteed money, but not the entire additional tax take, as he implied.

It's not only Brown. Skelton also notes that the initiative itself is misleading in how it describes where the money will go.