It sounds promising, but how it looks on paper is another thing entirely, said Garry Eagles, superintendent of Humboldt County Office of Education about Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s revealing of the May revision of the state’s budget on Wednesday — which promises to uphold the minimum Proposition 98 funding for public education.

The governor’s initial proposal in January was to cut $4.8 billion to education alone — as part of a major across-the-board overhaul of state agencies in an attempt to get a better handle on California’s reported $17.2 billion budget deficit. In doing so, Proposition 98 — the state’s minimum funding initiative for public education, had the potential of not being upheld.

What that means to local school districts such as Eureka City Schools, already battling the budgetary impact of declining enrollment, is that teachers, staff, programs and even schools, had to be laid-off, cut and closed in order to stay afloat for the 2008-09 school year.

Eagles said it will take a few days to determine exactly what the May revision will translate to locally. “Yes, I’m pleased that the proposal for education is not worse today than January, given the fact that the state budget situation is much worse. However, I’d be short-sided to say ‘Oh goodie, that’s it.’ You have to look at the whole budget proposal.”

Eagles said that entails looking at “what are we getting today, and what are we getting tomorrow in terms of actual dollars on the ground.”

Eureka City Schools Superintendent Gregg Haulk was taking an equally cautious approach on Wednesday: “We are pleased that the governor is stating that he will fund Prop 98 and in the next couple of days will determine what impact this has on our previous number of $3.5 million.”

Patrick Riggs, president of the Eureka Teachers Association said news from Sacramento should be adequate enough to begin re-hiring some of the 72 certificated staff members who were given pink slips recently — “right now.”

“We understand that there’s a certain amount of overstaffing in this district and that staffing has been a little tough,” Riggs said Wednesday. “So fine, if you need to do some trimming, then OK, that’s reasonable. But this has been so outrageously over-the-top the whole time.”

Riggs, a second-grade teacher at Alice Birney Elementary, said the lay-offs were the most he had ever seen in his 17 years of teaching.

On behalf of the ETA, Riggs said the district “should start to make decisions based on sound educational values and get these people reassured that their jobs are secure for this year. They need to do it right now and there’s no excuse not to.”

Eagles echoed concern for the loss of jobs, but said the district is working “diligently” to determine how many notices can be rescinded and when. “No one wants to lose good teachers. Nobody wants to put good teachers through this situation.”

“I urge patience of everyone involved,” he said. “Let the process work.”

Eagles said a more clear picture of how the budget affects local schools will be able to be determined in the next few days after staff has a chance to work through the numbers.