Help me count these beans

.....I admit it. When it comes to fiscal matters, I’m pretty clueless.
.....Occasionally, I hear our union leaders carp about the huge pile of money the trustees are sitting on, thanks to our “Basic Aid” gravy train—apparently, the SOCCCD is nearly unique among cc districts with regard to funding. We’re rolling in dough, they say, and yet the colleges are kept on miserly budgets. And why no raises for faculty? And why are these trustees squirreling away so much of the taxpayers’ money? “It’s obscene,” they say.
.....I guess so. I’m trying to find somebody to explain all of this.
.....I try to follow the bouncing Basic Aid ball, but it isn’t easy. Every time somebody explains that funding model, they make it sound as though budget cuts in Sacramento don’t affect us, since we get our money from local property taxes, not as an allocation from state budget money earmarked for community colleges.
.....OK. I get it. Or do I?
.....A few days ago (April 14), we received state budget news from Tracy Daly. Evidently, the district has been sent an “update” written by Robert Blattner, which was attached to Tracy’s email. The upshot seems to be that April tax collections are “down.” The news is bad and will continue to be bad, budgetwise.
.....But wait! The SOCCCD is a Basic Aid district. That means we get most of our funding from local property tax, not from the state via money budgeted for community colleges. Isn’t that how it goes?
.....Maybe so. After laying out the grim April tax facts, Blattner presents what he takes to be an even more “solid” fact:

According to a just-made-public survey of County assessors…, statewide growth in local property tax revenue for the budget year is sharply below earlier projections. The survey, which included most of the state’s counties and all of its large ones, projects a 4.5 percent growth between current and budget years, compared to the 7 percent forecast by the Administration…. This news doesn’t affect school districts directly (except for Basic Aid districts, which receive their local property taxes instead of revenue limit funding).

.....Blattner is saying that the bad news about property taxes does directly affect us. OK, I get that.
.....In her email, Tracy quotes the Chancellor:

“At this point, the State budget shortfall is being projected at $22 Billion. It is anticipated that the budget will get worse as the State receives the tax filings by April 15 and homeowners increasingly request reappraisal of their property taxes due to the declining housing market.”

.....--OK, I get the “homeowner” part. We’re Basic Aid. But is there any reason why the budget Stinkeroo should affect us, beyond the property tax situation?
.....Tracy (Mathur?) goes on to say:

The Orange County Community Colleges Legislative Task Force is working to communicate to legislators our concern over proposed cuts to community colleges, and gathering support letters to present to the Governor. More information will be sent out on this campaign soon.

.....--Yeah, but we’ve gotta be the odd duck in that crowd, right? These other districts aren’t Basic Aid, and so they’ve got to worry about these cuts. Not us. We are Basic Aid. What we want isn’t quite what everybody else wants, right?
.....Help me out here.
.....Tracy finishes with:

Board Vice President John Williams and Chancellor Mathur will be in Sacramento tomorrow [i.e., on the 15th, last Tuesday] to join the Community College League of California in speaking with legislators about the budget.

.....But, again, among this delegation, we’re odd man out, right? Insofar as SOCCCD is concerned, we don’t care about no stinkin’ state budget, right?
.....I figure that, if this is confusing to me, it’s likely confusing to other folks too. So maybe some of you out there can enlighten the benighted—in plain English. I’d appreciate it.