Local educators are cringing along with their counterparts across the state about the prospects of education funding and the coming session of the Alabama Legislature.
Concerns range from under-funding of K-12 education to cuts in benefits, higher insurance premiums and layoffs.
Budget hearings for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1, 2010, started this week, using early, grim predictions of a 31-percent drop in General Fund revenues and federal stimulus money. The regular legislative session will start Jan. 12.
Predictions for the Education Trust Fund are not quite as bad but still not good.
State School Superintendent Joe Morton predicted this week that, at best, education funding would be level with this year's funding, which is prorated 7.5 percent. According to wire reports, he said he does not see a way to avoid more students in some classrooms and teacher layoffs.
Donna Tidmore, chief financial officer for Arab City Schools, said that after two years of proration, "level funding" for Arab would be $2.8 million less than it received two years ago.
Layoffs are expected for non-education state employees as well. About the only glimmer of good news is that the recession appears to have bottomed out, and an improved economy could generate additional revenue, lawmakers told reporters this week.
Diane Wilson, president of the Marshall County Education Association, gave a brief but gloomy report at the county school board's last meeting.
Wilson, who represents some 700 teachers and support personnel in the county schools, attended the delegate assembly of the Alabama Education Association Dec. 3-4 in Montgomery. The group gives direction to AEA lobbying efforts for the coming legislative session.
She said the talk was "gloom and doom," and current levels of insurance coverage and premiums, as well as retirement system payments, are in danger.
"With the current financial status there is a possibility there will be a number of cuts in some of these areas," she said. "We're hoping they can keep them as strong as possible."
AEA area representative Theresa Henry of Arab said 67 of the school systems in Alabama already have had to tap into their reserves, in which the state board had previously required keeping a month's operating expenses.
"It's bad," Henry said. "It's going to be bad for all of us."
Expect proration again, Superintendent John Mullins said at last week's meeting of the Arab Board of Education.
As for benefits, he said, educators and support personnel can expect premiums or co-pays to go up. As it is, benefits make up some 31 percent of all Education Trust Fund spending for K-12.
Information Mullins received shows that in 25 years there has been no increase in the $2 cost per month for single health insurance coverage, and the cost to employees for family coverage has increased from $95 to $134 per month. During the same period, the state's portion of premiums has increased from $60 per month to $752, an increase of 1,153 percent.
"We've enjoyed (low payments) a long time, but I don't see how we can continue," he said.
He also discussed the lobbying effort the state board will use in arguing that K-12 receive a larger portion of the Education Trust Fund, which is split with two- and four-year colleges.
K-12 has 739,197 full-time students, which is 75.67 percent of all public school and college students in the state. At the same time, Mullins said, K-12 receives a disproportionate 68.78 percent of the Education Trust Fund.
That further breaks down to $4,952 per full-time equivalent student in K-12, $7,213 for each FTE in a two-year or technical college and $8,434 for each FTE in a four-year school.
"Government needs to provide basic public education to all students," board member Brian Clemons said during the discussion.
Colleges get funding from endowments and can raise tuition, he said, but K-12 has no such source of funding.
Furthermore, Mullins noted, to receive the student allocations from the state, K-12 schools are required to provide a "match" equal to 10 mills of property tax. Colleges, on the other hand, do not have to ante up any match money to receive state funding.
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