I’ve been writing how organized education groups have opposed the Governor’s budget recommendation to alter the funding formula for schools, particularly as it relates to non-instructional personnel, as a means of achieving the $400 million reduction in K-12 spending necessary to balance the state budget.
The coalition’s position got a huge boost yesterday when Republicans Bob Tata and Phil Hamilton, who occupy crucial positions relating to Education on House Appropriations, raised their own concerns about the long-term impact of changing the funding formula.
Tata and Hamilton join House and Senate Democrats who have already voiced their own reservations about the Governor’s plan.
What looked to be shaping up as an intense battle between legislative Democrats on one side and the Governor aligned with House Republicans on the other has been transformed into a situation where the Governor appears to put forward a position that no one wants to endorse, given the organized opposition of the K-12 coalition.
I doubt that anyone will be very happy with the cuts that will ultimately have to be made. In fact, the Governor proposed atering the formula about non-instructional personnel in order to save a number of the special and remedial programs that had been instituted during the past decade. Kaine believes that the outcome of not changing the formula could ultimately make the schools worse off.
But the rapidity with which the political dynamic on this issue has shifted once again indicates the political influence that organized K-12 education groups can exercise when they are relatively united.
Leave a Reply