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LEGISLATIVE UPDATE 5b (Feb 14th)
Constituents
-- late Friday afternoon news came out that the joint House and Senate meetings to begin next week to review the education budget. Then an announcement came out that the meetings had been cancelled and I begin receiving calls about what had happened. It soon became apparent that Superintendent Tom Luna's proposed budget had created a firestorm of protest, and that we also just received news about details of the stimulus package and its impact on K-12 education.
Public education will receive about a total of $450 million over a two year period.
A total of $245 will be directed to the educational stabilization fund which the state can utilize to bring up funding to FY08 levels. This includes $107 million for Pell Grants, $54 million for special education, $13 million for Title 1, $11 million for school improvement grants, and money for other specific areas which will be calculated through set formula. But the $245 comes with no strings attached and will greatly assist us over the next two years in maintaining adequate funding for education.
Superintendent Luna admitted that his original budget was a bad one and very flawed, but he is faced with having to develop a budget that would assist the Legislature come up with a balanced budget.
Mr. Luna as well
as House Ed Chairman Nonini said all of this was very good news.
Other stimulus components that will help include $300 for Medicaid, which will help strengthen the safety net for many of our low income families.
Gov. Otter should be happy with the $200 million for roads and bridges since this is one time money and it will help employment opportunities for our citizens. There are many other components in the package including assistance
for the area of Higher Education so it will be interesting to see how this helps out the University of Idaho.
It certainly is good news to come at the end of the week when all of the other news from the economy is bad.
Rep. Tom Trail
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