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Los Angeles County, CA March 8, 2005 Election
Smart Voter

Stopping the Governor's Budget Cuts to The Community Colleges

By Mark Gonzaga

Candidate for Member of the Board of Trustees; Los Angeles Community College District; Office 4

This information is provided by the candidate
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has decided to balance the state budget on the backs of the poor. The poor go to community colleges.
Instead of fulfilling a campaign promise to ask the Federal government to give California back some of the money we send to Washington, the governor has proposed to cut an already emaciated community college budget. Taxpayers spend $30,000 each year to keep a petty thief in prison but less than $5,000 a year to educate a community college student. In this era of budget cutting, the state's huge prison system will cut almost none of its $6.1 billion budget yet the reality is that a lack of education leads directly to prisons and to body bags in Iraqi Oilfields. It is time to spend our money on education not prisons!

The community colleges will lose a significant part of their budget through the governor's budget cuts and they will suffer further cuts now and in the future by not receiving their fair share of Proposition 98 funding. In fact, our community colleges are under funded by more than $2.7 billion under Proposition 98. Since the Los Angeles Community Colleges already have a chronic under-funding factor, these budget cuts will further devastate students and staff. I intend to fight for our fair share by demanding that the waivers and accommodations given to our students at the State and University levels, are also given to our students who need the help the most + those at the community college level.

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ca/la Created from information supplied by the candidate: February 28, 2005 14:53
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