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By Dr. Harry Tennant
Wednesday, January 19, 2011 In The News: Less To Do More--- Except In The Governor's Office Texas education will not be sparred in the intense belt-tightening to come. Here are some quotes from WFAA.com coverage...and the entire article link and embedded video can be found below that: "Public education in Texas is facing billions in proposed budget cuts that would include slashing arts education, pre-kindergarten programs and teacher incentive pay as lawmakers take on a massive deficit with the promise of no new taxes. School board members in the Plano Independent School District have already foreseen problems and have begun to take action. Wednesday night, the board voted to go ahead with layoffs of clerical and administrative workers to help shave $10 million off the budget. So far, there are no plans for teacher layoffs. Lawmakers got their first glimpse of what the next state budget might look like late Tuesday, including the $5 billion cut to public schools, as Republican Gov. Rick Perry and his supporters were dancing at an inaugural celebration.""....Some analysts say the true shortfall could be much higher than $15 billion — closer to $27 billion — to account for enrollment growth in public schools and on Medicaid rolls, cost increases and other variables. That figure amounts to almost a third of discretionary state spending in the current budget. The proposal would make public school finance reform legislation almost inevitable. It also would mean about 100,000 children would no longer have access to pre-kindergarten, schools won't get help building new science labs and would end a program that helps students earn promotion to the next grade. "...The state's contributions to the state employee retirement fund would be reduced from 6.95 percent to 6 percent, less than what is needed to maintain the fund, according the Legislative Budget Board. The base budget proposes a similar cut in contributions to the Teacher Retirement Fund. While almost every other state agency would see a reduction in employees, the average number of full-time employees in Perry's office over the next two fiscal years would go to 132 from an average of 120." Posted at 12:00 PM Keywords: In The News , School Finance , Texas , Budget Cuts 0 Comments |
