News Headlines
Source: KSBA eNews Service, Frankfort, March 15, 2010
Holliday to pitch plan to keep two instructional days, reduce state spending by same amount
KDE, districts each would make $17 million in cuts in 2010-11, 2011-12
By Brad Hughes
Education Commissioner Terry Holliday will ask leaders of the Kentucky Senate to restore two instructional days that were eliminated in the biennial budget bill passed by the House of Representatives. In exchange, Holliday proposes that the Department of Education and the state’s 174 school districts reduce spending by $34 million a year, the amount that would be saved by cutting those two days.
Addressing the KSBA Board of Directors this past weekend, Holliday said under his plan the Department of Education would cut $17 million from “flow-through” grants, while local school leaders would reduce spending by another $17 million, based on each district’s percentage of state school funding. A majority of the KSBA board voted Saturday to endorse the commissioner’s proposal as an alternative to losing the two instructional days. However, several KSBA board members objected to the plan as being another shift of legislative school-funding reponsibility to school boards.
“There’s about $200 million in flow-through dollars in grant programs and not all districts are benefiting from those programs,” Holliday said. “We definitely wouldn’t go after things like Read to Achieve or math or anything where we have teachers employed. What we would do is go after programs that really have no results coming out.
“We’ve identified $10 million to $20 million that we think we could take and not impact anybody’s employment or any significant program that’s going on,” said the commissioner, without naming the targeted programs.
“Superintendents have testified to the House A&R Committee, ‘If there are cuts, let us have some flexibility to decide where to do it.’ So it could be that we say, ‘Here are the flow-through dollars from the state. You guys figure out where to cut $17 million and the department will figure out where to cut $17 million. So it would be a shared load,” he said.
Holliday and Kentucky Board of Education Chairman Joe Brothers have expressed concerns that a decision to shorten the school year would send the wrong signal to the Obama administration as it considers the state’s finalist application for up to $200 million in Race to the Top school reform funds. But Holliday also sees other potential negative impacts from a cut to 175 days from 177 days.
“What’s going to happen is that some districts will say, ‘We’re going to keep the two days and pay for it locally.’ That’s going to create inequity. What SEEK (the state’s K-12 funding formula) is all about is not to create inequity,” he said.
“Teachers are going to have a 1 percent pay cut. That’s what’s going to happen. Those of you in collective bargaining may not be able to cut days at all,” Holliday said.
The commissioner said House leaders are open to his proposal and he hopes to make a pitch to Senate leaders this week.