This
is, without question, among the most frustrating budget seasons in
North Carolina history for supporters of public education. And the
slight concessions that lawmakers have made seem so pale in
comparison to the terrible hardship those lawmakers are set to
unleash on our children and teachers. It’s hard to consider any
concessions as victories.
Guilford
County Commissioners are expected to vote on the county budget in
just a few hours, including local funding for our schools. The
Guilford County school board, you may remember, requested about $24
million in additional local funding, in large part to offset current
and expected state budget cuts. On Monday, commissioners moved to
revise their proposed budget to include about $1.5 million in
additional funding to our schools.
While
Guilford Education Alliance has advocated for commissioners to
approve the school board's funding request, and while we still hold
out hope that's what they'll do, we are grateful that there is some
recognition on the commissioners' part that local funding of our
schools must be increased.
To
give some perspective, $1.5 million would allow the school district
to employ about 50 assistant teachers. We note that because, if
adopted, the state Senate budget would eliminate 4,500 teaching
assistants across the state and the House budget would cut $24.6
million from that line item.
In
all, the state Senate budget would fail to meet K-12 public education
needs by more than $135.2 million, while the House budget falls short
by more than $79.3 million. It's hard to pick out the most egregious
proposal in budgets but it looks like most elected to the General
Assembly hate school more than Tom Sawyer on a sunny day but the
Senate's desire to cut 12,500 seats from the state's pre-K program
over the next two years is pretty miserable.
The
House budget wouldn't cut as many seats from pre-K but it would deny
them to 4-year-olds whose families are from other countries and
haven't learned to speak English yet, a proposition so ironic and
counterproductive it's exhausting.
It
makes for pretty unpleasant reading, but here's
a great side-by-side comparison
of
the two budgets from
the General Assembly as well as Gov. Pat McCrory's budget proposal
worked
up by Wake
Education Partnership.
Voters
aren't happy with where state leadership is heading with these budget
measures either. Public
Policy Polling released
a report this week that shows less than 19 percent of voters polled
approved of the Senate's budget and less than 17 percent approved of
the House budget. More than 56 percent of North Carolinians polled
disapprove of the job the legislature is doing and only 20 percent
approve. Even most Republicans polled disapprove, and their party is
in control of the Governor's mansion, the Senate and the House!
Maybe
those abysmal approval ratings are why on Monday the Senate voted not
to concur with the House budget, putting the brakes on approving a
state budget until the two Chambers’ Conference Committee
appointees work out their differences. To express your opinion to the
Conference Committee members, click
on this list.
