Poway school district officials say they won't have to make cuts next year if Gov. Jerry Brown's budget plan passes, but a number of issues—including an unresolved employee contract—leave the future uncertain.

"We are keeping the budget as we had for this year with no additional cuts to '11-'12 ... but it depends on what happens on the June ballot," said Malliga Tholandi, associate superintendent of business support services for the Poway Unified School District.

"All the low-hanging fruit has been cut already," Tholandi said.

Board President Penny Ranftle said the plan, even with limited cuts to education isn't good enough.

"I'm tired of begging the state to give us the money they're supposed to give us," she said.

Brown's plan, which was released Monday, calls for relatively unchanged education funding in the 2011-12 fiscal year as long as four expiring taxes are extended for five years by voters in a June special election.

"Now with my program—including the extension of the taxes—schools will be held even at $49 billion," Brown said Monday during the budget plan announcement. "Since they've taken the bulk of the cuts, that makes sense to me."

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson said education funding has been cut by $18 billion over the past three years.

Ranftle said the district has cut more than $50 million within recent years.

"I'm not satisfied with what we're being told we're going to receive," Ranftle said. "I understand that we have a budget crisis. ... At the same time, we can only cut so much. They need to think outside the box and come up with creative ways to manage the finances they give us."

Ranftle said she wants the state to remove restrictions from all three tiers of its categorical funding, which is designated for certain programs as opposed to money in the general fund that districts decide how to spend.

"Why not blow up the tiers?" Ranftle said. Currently, districts have leeway in using Tier III funds which are for lower-priority programs such as art. The top two tiers include programs such as child nutrition and transportation.

But whether Brown's tax extension request will be granted is unclear as many Republican lawmakers push back against further taxing Californians.

If none of the taxes—such as a quarter-percentage point Personal Income Tax surcharge—are extended, education funding will be cut by $2 billion.

Tholandi said the district has received about $6 million in federal stimulus money, representing 90 percent of its allotment. All of the money has to be used by September 2012, but so far none of it has been touched, which could help in the event of additional cuts, she said.

"We've been cutting for three years. To cut anything more would be really, extremely difficult because it would affect the programs for the children," Tholandi said.

The district cut $27 million for the current school year, most of which came through rollback days for teachers and management that amounted to a 4.3 percent salary cut, Tholandi said. The newly formed Poway School Employees Association has yet to settle a new contract with the district and its members are not subject to rollback days or the associated salary reduction.

PSEA members are classified employees, such as office staff.

Tholandi said administrators were pleased with at least one aspect of the governor's budget plan: the restoration of mental health services funding for special education students in 2011-12. Former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger cut that funding for the current school year, which district officials have estimated will cost PUSD $1 million.

Brown's plan calls for these services to be funded by income from Proposition 63, the Mental Health Services Act which levies an additional 1 percent tax on income over $1 million. After 2011-12, the services would be funded by dedicated revenue.

Even with the mental health funding restoration and no-cuts pledge, Brown's plan takes education funding back one step—at least temporarily—by not providing a Cost-of-Living Adjustment (COLA) in 2011-12.

The projected COLA for 2011-12 is 1.67 percent, which would have provided an additional $964.5 million for state schools. The takeaway has been structured so that schools would be entitled to a funding restoration in the future, though when that would happen is unknown.