Is it enough to funds our schools
An Alabama House committee approved a bare-bones education budget Wednesday that provides almost $375 million less for schools and colleges than is being spent in the current fiscal year. The $6.3 billion budget approved by the House Education Appropriations Committee cuts spending for buses, textbooks, school libraries, classroom computers and for popular programs to improve performance in reading, math and science. It also provides less money for a distance learning program that allows students in poor rural areas to receive the same academic classes offered in prosperous suburban school districts.
The budget does not account for a tax cut The committee instead added $25 million, but one committee member, Rep. John Rogers, D-Birmingham, said he and other lawmakers may use delaying tactics when the budget is considered on the House floor next week in an attempt to get more funding for four-year schools. Rogers is director of minority affairs at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. For Alabama residents making less than $100,000 a year that was proposed by Gov. Bob Riley. That was expected to reduce tax revenue by about $24 million.
The head of the state teacher's union, Paul Hubbert, said he has no major problems with the budget, even though it provides no money for a pay raise for teachers, who have gotten pay hikes the last two years. "There are no layoffs in this budget. There is funding for all state personnel," Hubbert said. He said because of the economy, it was impossible to ask for a pay raise this year. "As soon as the economy turns back around, we will be back and ask for a cost of living increase."
