In a resolution that shows its displeasure with the way the state falls short funding schools, the Pacifica School District board unanimously passed a resolution April 9 asking Sacramento legislators for some relief.

Give us a break about funding state mandates, paying sales tax and following rigid budgetary rules for restricted funds, the board members said.

The state requires school districts to perform services that are not part of the basic educational mission. Some examples are developing school safety plans, providing AIDS instructions, engaging in collective bargaining and addressing habitual truancy. Through 2004, the state has reimbursed school districts for running these programs but since then reimbursement has been spotty, according to Jim Lianides, superintendent of the PSD.

The PSD is owed $278,476 from prior years, Lianides said.

This is an interest free loan from the state. If we had it, it would be drawing interest and could meet our needs. I want the state to pay up, Lianides said.

The board also asked the state legislators to take a critical look at why a public agency such as a school district is required to pay sales tax back to the state that funds it.

In the case of textbooks, for example, not only is the allocation per student inadequate to pay for the new adoption, the state also takes back 8.25 percent of the amount purchased in sales tax. The PSD paid $43,876 in sales tax in 2006-07 on supplies, equipment and textbooks, Lianides wrote in a memo to the school board for the Apr. 9 meeting.

Other states don't require school districts to pay sales tax, said Susan Vickrey, PSD assistant superintendent.

In 2003-04, when the state deeply cut funding to school districts, it allowed flexibility about the use of certain restricted funds. The board included in its resolution a request the state again allow such flexibility, as well as a waiver of the .5 percent general fund contribution to the deferred maintenance fund, the grouping of restricted programs into block grants, permission to go below the mandated three percent reserve, waiver of the three percent contribution to routine maintenance, allowing the PSD to book a state payment in the current year when the state booked its allocation in the prior year and allowing PSD to go over the 20:1 ratio in kindergarten through third grade without penalty.

At its next meeting, the PSD board is expected to vote on an amendment to the resolution that includes relief from funding new textbook adoptions and to permit a portion of the building fund to be used to augment the general fund.

The board stopped short of following through with its idea to refuse to adhere to state mandates while the state fell short of funding them. The board decided to wait to take action on that until after the state budget is passed to see if it offers some relief in funding for state mandates.