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Idaho Senate backs education cuts

by Jessie L. Bonner
| March 22, 2010 9:00 PM

BOISE - The Idaho Senate voted 27-8 Monday to pass a $1.58 billion budget for public schools next year, clearing one of the biggest remaining hurdles to ending the 2010 Legislature by Friday.

Sen. Dean Cameron co-chairs the Legislature's budget-writing panel and introduced the spending plan for public education, which represents more than half of the state budget for the next fiscal year.

"I never thought I would stand in front of you this day and suggest that you vote for a budget bill that's actually less than what public schools received last year," said Cameron, a Rupert Republican.

The budget represents a 7.5 percent cut compared with the current fiscal year. The state general fund portion falls 1.4 percent to $1.21 billion under the plan, which was crafted amid rising unemployment and lagging tax revenue that forced Idaho to siphon millions from public education reserves.

There was also the absence of one-time federal stimulus cash that helped bolster the public schools budget during the past fiscal year.

The budget shaves 4 percent from Idaho's share of the cost for teacher and classified staff salaries. Teachers also won't get automatic raises based on education or experience, and the minimum teacher salary will drop to $29,655, although districts could still pay educators more from their other funding sources.

School administrators will take a 6.5 percent salary cut.

The plan to steer Idaho schools through public education's worst budget year reflects a compromise reached during talks involving Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Luna, the Association of School Boards, Association of School Superintendents, the Idaho Education Association and lawmakers, Cameron said.

The budget aims to give school districts as much flexibility as possible to manage the cuts, allowing them to redirect money for items such as new computers and other supplies to their most critical needs.

Senate Democrats voted against the spending plan, protesting a measure that was tacked onto the budget bill in the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee earlier this month and would declare a financial emergency for all Idaho schools.

The provision, pushed by Rep. Fred Wood, R-Burley, is the only piece of the public schools budget that was not reached as part of the multilateral talks and prompted outcry from the teachers union.

The measure would allow local schools boards to reopen negotiations on teacher salaries and benefits during the middle of the 2010-11 school year, even if their districts aren't close to exhausting their funds, a threshold required by a 2009 law before they could declare an emergency.

Sen. Nicole LeFavour made a motion to strip the provision from the budget, sending it to the amending order, but Republicans rejected the proposal as unrealistic for an appropriations bill.

LeFavour, a Boise Democrat, also wanted lawmakers to explore additional funding for public schools with a plan that would have, among other cost-savings measures, delayed a 2009 law to consolidate Idaho elections.

"We have a duty to do our best, and I do believe we can do more," LeFavour said.

In closing remarks after the two-hour debate, Cameron assured lawmakers that the Legislature's budget-writing panel had left no stone unturned.

"The committee has done the best work it possibly can," he said.