The governor released her budget today designed to close the $2.6 billion budget gap. The budget includes no new revenue; the gap would be closed with budget cuts. Education would experience about $470 million in cuts. We will feel these in our school system as the proposal would eliminate any funding for I-728, cut levy equalization, and impact K-4 funding.
I’ll share more when we have time to analyze the proposal in more detail and see how it will impact us. It is not good news coming on the heels of what we needed to do to balance this year’s budget. Here is a link to the League of Education Voters announcement of the governor's budget.
3 comments:
Hey Mike,
The news is not surprising but yet it is still disappointing. It just plain stinks…Your posts have recently discussed how government wants to make things better in education. They want national standards, they want more individualized instruction, they want better teachers, and then this is what they hand to us, cuts. They need us to step and do more but then pull one of the main pieces that can help make it happen, funds.
I could get into cuts to I-732 and teacher salaries, but that is only one piece. Cuts to class size money means less staff. Cuts in levy equalization means cuts to lots of things. The state’s paramount duty is to fund education yet it is the first thing to get cut when times are tough. Last year the state legislature passed HB 2261 which has wide sweeping changes to education. When it passed it passed with the notion that funding for the changes will be figured out later. Now the changes will begin to take place and with what funding, maybe another unfunded mandate.
I guess the thing that makes me mad is that most of us are living our own lives with less money, saving more, and making changes that actually save us money. We are simplifying our lives. In education, they are giving us less money and expecting more from us as educators. When will it stop.
Scott Mitchell
I'm with Scott. It is frustrating. Many predicted we'd end up in exactly this situation a few years ago when the reforms were greenlighted with no plan for how to fund them.
Scott spoke of how, even though the cuts don't come as a surprise they are still dissapointing. I'm right there with him on that one too. It is dispiriting. Until there is fundamental change in how education is funded we will continue to go through these cycles of hope and frustration. Knowing about it, predicting it, expecting it doesn't help me (and I would guess many others) keep at bay the very human response of being deeply dissapointed and feeling like our work is unvalued. I wish I could turn that connection in brain off, but don't seem to be able to. At least there is hope that revenue increases could make the necessary cuts smaller. I don't know that it is reasonable to hope that funadmental change is forthcoming.
Mike-
Thank you for the timely information, just as you provided last year during the difficult budget crisis. These numbers seem to again require significant revision in how we operate. Though we may be able to creatively address some of the shortfall, again we find ourselves in a situation where the only solutions seems to include very tough decisions.
*Eliminate Local Effort Assistance (LEA) 470,000
*Eliminate K-4 Class Size Enhancement 1,400,000
*Eliminate I-728 915,000
*Eliminate Gifted Program Funding 65,000
*TOTAL $2,850,000
I believe we may be able to avoid some of the difficulties in communication we experienced last time if we assemble a committee that is representative of all stakeholder groups to do some problem solving and budget prioritization. It seemed unfair to all involved in the committee work last year to be held responsible for a situation that they did not create, especially when it put them at odds with other stakeholder groups. If there going to be a committee formed for problem solving and recommending budget adjustments during this procedure, I would like to make myself available for participation.
Jonathan Hartke
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