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With the adoption of the state budget for the next two years, the Virginia General Assembly has caused a seizmic shift in responsibility for funding our schools from the state to local jurisdictions. The result, however, could have been much worse had it not been for the pressure that thousands of public education supporters generated on members of the General Assembly.
The report of the Budget Conference Committee reflects substantial movement toward the Senate’s support for PreK-12 public education.
Governor Kaine’s introduced budget cut public education funding by $800 million. The House would have added $685 million in cuts and the Senate would have cut $114 million. The conference report had to come in between those two figures – that’s the nature of the game.
The Senate hung tough. Senator Edd Houck was chief negotiator for the Senate for education. Senators Colgan and Saslaw joined him from the Democratic side of the aisle. Republican Senators Stosch, Norment and Wampler stood tough for public education as well – supporting the Senate position. This bipartisan support in the Senate made a tremendous difference. Governor McDonnell helped pressure the House to move in the Senate’s directions as well.
The Senate prevailed, sparing At-Risk programs from cuts and saving the funds for secondary planning time.
When the conference committee reported, the cuts to PreK-12 were $253 million. The Senate moved $139 and the House moved $432 million.
Because the Senate hung tough, state support for 12,118 PreK-12 positions will be retained. This will ruduce the number of jobs lost in our schools and lessen class size increases.
Now that the state budget is settled, local school divisions and taxing bodies (counties or cities) will have to make tremendously difficult decisions about what to fund and what to cut. Public education supporters should now turn their attention to influencing those local decisions.
Thank you for your tremendous support thoughout this intense battle over a very difficult state budget.
Time to act grows short.
In the Virginia General Assembly, House and Senate budget conferees are weighing huge cuts to PreK-12 education. The decisions made by this group will play a large role in determining the support your local schools will have from the state. Quality programs are at risk.
It is clear that the Senate version of the budget is much better (or much less bad) than the House version. Ask the conferees to support the Senate version.
Please act now to let the conferees know the cuts are too deep! Please send messages to both the House and Senate conferees even if no one on the list represents you where you live.
The two versions of the state budget revealed last weekend–one by the State Senate and one by the State House of Delegates–cut a little less than Governor McDonnell proposed, but both cut schools too much.
In terms of jobs, the House version could result in about 24,000 layoffs in our schools. And , while a little less bad, the Senate version could result in nearly 16,000 layoffs. These are in addition to the layoffs caused by Governor Kaine’s decision in the last budget to use temporary federal money as a bandage to his cuts in school spending. Without that federal money this year, an additional 1,326 cuts could occur.
Here’s another way to view the meat ax proposals for our schools. The House proposal would reduce state spending for each student from $5,277 in 2009 to $4,459 in 2010-11 and $4,452 in 2011-12. The Senate’s version would be a little better at $4,736 in 2010-11 and $4,693 in 2011-12.
Neither budget proposal now under consideration will be good for our children and the future of our public schools. We know that these dollar cuts will result in real, drastic and long-term reductions in the quantity and quality of programs for our children.
Tell your legislators and Governor McDonnell that these cuts are unacceptable.
Governor McDonnell has made next year’s school funding challenges even worse. On Wednesday, February 17, he proposed cutting school funding by greater amounts than were being considered by state legislators. He cut schools even deeper than the $723 million anticipated, dropping school funding by $730 million beyond the $1.2 billion in cuts announced by Governor Tim Kaine.
Dr. Kitty Boitnott, president of the Virginia Education Association had this to say about the Governor’s recommendations:
“We are very disappointed that Governor McDonnell has chosen to balance the budget on the backs of Virginia’s school children.
“For a jobs Governor, he has chosen to facilitate the layoffs of thousands of school employees, and to deny our children the educational opportunities they need to compete for jobs in today’s and tomorrow’s economy.
“This is certainly a very sad moment for Virginia, and it represents an equally sad start for Governor McDonnell. We hope this is not a sign of what is in store for public education for the next four years.”
Your state legislators will make the final decision on the budget. Contact them now to say that these cuts are too deep. And let Governor McDonnell know that these cuts are too deep.
The General Assembly is planning on cutting funds for your local schools by more than $1.2 billion for next year, possibly as much as $1.8 billion.
Don’t let it happen.
Contact Governor McDonnell and your state Delegate and state Senator. Tell them that $1 Billion-plus in school cuts will steal our children’s future. Tell them to Keep The Promise to Virginia’s children.
What will happen to our schools?
See below for a list of planned cuts by school districts. And check out the headlines from news sites across the state.
Don’t let it happen. Contact Governor McDonnell and your state Delegate and state Senator. Tell them to stop stealing our children’s future.
This message and website are provided as a service of the Virginia Education Association.
The quality staff and programs we’re losing do matter.
Don’t let it happen. Contact Governor McDonnell and your state Delegate and state Senator. Tell them to stop stealing our children’s future.
Source: Drawn from survey by Virginia Association of School Superintendents of budget and program cuts being considered by school divisions. Some items drawn from news reports on local and state budget crisis.
If you think that our school divisions are struggling to reduce budgets based upon ex-Governor Kaine’s introduced budget, then watch out for the devastation that will occur when the General Assembly makes $720 million in additional cuts.
Here’s a heads-up from the February 9 Virginian Pilot:
“Teachers with colorful tote bags, doctors in white coats and deputies in starched uniforms have all visited the state Capitol over the past three weeks, beseeching legislators to ease up on the cuts in former Gov. Tim Kaine’s budget proposal.
“If they could see into the future, they would be begging to escape with only the reductions they know about already. In a typical year, the worst-case financial scenario is presented early, and legislators labor to shave cuts down to a tolerable level.
“This year is hardly typical.
“Because the Virginia government relies on income taxes for two-thirds of its revenues, private-sector layoffs and widespread furloughs have opened up a vast chasm in the budget totaling $4 billion over the next two years. Kaine closed the gap halfway with spending cuts but asked legislators to protect core services by adopting an income tax increase to close it completely.
“Gov. Bob McDonnell and Republican legislative leaders not only rejected that idea but vowed to defeat any and all tax increases. They have not revealed how they will close the budget gap, but in hushed hallway conversations, Capitol Square veterans acknowledge that they are steeling themselves for spending cuts twice those in Kaine’s plan.
“Columns of red numbers totaling billions of dollars don’t begin to convey the enormity of the crisis. People outside of the process still assume things will get better. Instead, things are about to get much, much worse.”
Here’s a link to the complete disturbing article.
And how bad will it be for your schools? Here’s an estimate from VEA on the ADDITIONAL CUTS coming to your school division.
You can still stop this run-away train by contacting your legislators now and telling them to support Senator Locke’s SB 705 (See below).
State Senator Mamie Locke announced Monday, February 8, a package of tax proposals that would partially restore pending cuts to Virginia’s schools.
Senator Locke, a Hampton Democrat, proposed the Keep the Promise to Virginia’s Children Act in a news conference at the capitol Monday morning. The package would raise approximately $1.3 billion over a two-year period to restore education cuts proposed by former Governor Tim Kaine.
“I think the state can do better by our children,” Senator Locke said. “I stand up because I know that a system of high-quality public education is the most important ingredient in our economic development and future economic prosperity,” she said.
Dr. Kitty Boitnott, president of the Virginia Education Association, introduced Senator Locke, and predicted that state funding will be reduced by as much as $1,000 for each student if the legislature does not raise revenues for schools.
“One billion-plus in state education cuts will steal our children’s future,” Boitnott predicted.
Michael Cassidy, executive director of The Commonwealth Institute, summarized the proposed tax adjustments included in the Keep the Promise To Virginia’s Children Act, that would restore approximately $1.3 billion in education cuts:
A distinguished scholar of school funding, Dr. Richard Salmon of Virginia Tech, told Virginia legislators last week that, if they do not take steps to ease the loss of state revenue, the “magnitude of the fiscal disaster…will harm public schools to such an extent that several generations will be repairing the damage.”
Salmon, along with VEA President Kitty Boitnott and other advocates for public schools, cited dire predictions for the future of Virginia public schools during testimony last week to the Education Subcommittee of the Senate Finance Committee.
Boitnott told legislators that the budget under consideration could result in 23,000 layoffs of school employees during the next two years.
Salmon cited the annual loss of $607 of state funding for each student and $12,140 for each classroom. “For each child that attends public school in Virginia for the offered 13 years, …each will suffer a total loss of nearly $158,000 (adjusted for inflation),” Salmon testified.
He recommended that legislators be more transparent and responsible in communicating the effects of their budget decisions to Virginians: “Explain to them that the alternative to increasing the fiscal effort for education, and other government services, is the substantial reduction in the quality of their public schools and public services.” Salmon’s full remarks
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