News Headlines
Source: KSBA eNews Service, Frankfort, Dec. 11, 2008
Gov. Beshear: no SEEK or contingency fund cuts, flex focus funds take 2 percent hit
Proposal depends on tobacco tax hikes
By Brad Hughes
Frankfort – Calling the SEEK program “the lifeblood for K-12,” Gov. Steve Beshear is exempting the state’s base school support formula from his plan to balance a projected $456 million revenue shortfall by June 30, 2009.
Flex focus funds and other elementary and secondary education programs (an estimated 13 percent of the Kentucky Department of Education’s budget) and funding for the state’s public universities and community colleges will be reduced by 2 percent. However, other government agencies must reduce spending between 4 percent and 6 percent over the next six-and-a-half months.
“Our long-term future in this state depends upon an educated, qualified, skilled workforce. And we’re not going to get there if we continue to seriously damage our systems’ abilities to educate our children,” Beshear said.
“To gut education is to doom Kentucky to mediocrity for as long as we can imagine. Education is my top priority and I believe it must be our state’s top priority,” he said. “We cannot sacrifice our future.”
KSBA Executive Director Bill Scott quickly praised the governor for “his commitment to preserve the SEEK program and otherwise to minimize the impact of budget cuts on our public schools. His action is the strongest indication yet of how much this governor believes that education is the only realistic way to improve the lives of Kentuckians.”
Details
In order to balance the budget while exempting SEEK (Support Education Excellence in Kentucky), Medicaid, mental health services and required payments on debt service, the governor will:
- take $178.9 million from the state budget’s rainy day fund;
- direct $147.1 million in spending reductions (including the 2 percent cut to non-SEEK education programs); and
- transfer $40.6 million in otherwise restricted funds.
Additionally, Beshear will ask the General Assembly next month to act on two proposals:
- raise an additional $81.5 million this fiscal year by increasing the cigarette tax to 70 cents per pack and double taxes on smokeless tobacco, snuff and other tobacco products; and
- reduce state government personnel costs by $8 million by giving him the authority to furlough state employees (including staff of the Department of Education) for three days without pay between now and June 30.
Acting State Budget Director John Hicks said that the administration had considered school district contingency funds as another resource.
“It was considered, but as the governor said, ‘Education is our top priority,’ so we recommended that we not go that route,” Hicks said.
Funding for teacher retirement benefits and state-supported college scholarships also are left untouched. However, the governor said no one, including public schools, will escape the pain of the current economic hard times.
“We exempted SEEK earlier this year from reductions in state spending of $430 million. In non-SEEK areas, schools have already been cut,” Beshear said. “As a result of those cuts, I’ve read how some teachers are going to buy supplies out of their pockets. If we don’t get new revenues, there will be more examples.
“We are going to come out of this crisis with a foundation to build on our education progress,” he said.
Scott said KSBA will back the governor’s push for additional revenues.
“KSBA has long supported the need for new revenue sources for public education and our goal for all children to reach proficiency by 2014,” he said. “Gov. Beshear’s proposal to raise the cigarette tax by 70 cents and double other tobacco taxes provides crucial new revenue to support student learning as well as reducing tobacco use by our children.”