House: No education budget promises for 08-09

House Schools and Learning council chairman Joe Pickens, R-Palatka, today unveiled his chamber's proposal for education funding through the rest of this deficit-plagued budget year.

It would cut $265.3-million from preK-12 through June 30, but Pickens stressed that still leaves per student funding up by 4.53 percent ($308 per student) compared to last year. The original budget for the current year, passed before the state's revenue shortfalls, had per-student funding up by nearly 6 percent.

The proposal also would keep National Board certification bonuses at 10 percent, but teacher mentoring bonuses would fall to 5 percent (from the current 10 percent).

"I can't say that next year we'll be able to take the same tact if things don't improve" with the state economy," Pickens warned.

He also told the council that the plan is to "hold schools harmless" from the $138-million they're expected to lose from the recently passed Amendment 1.

"But it will not be possible to hold education harmless from the impacts of our economy," he said.

Higher education would lose $92-million from the current-year budget, equivalent to a roughly 3 percent reduction for the year when tuition revenues are included.

Adding to uncertainty, the House likely won't know the depth of needed budget cuts for 2008-09 until after session begins next month.

"That literally will be a game-time decision based on what revenues look like for February and March," he said.

Based on recent months' declines amounting to a $2-billion deficit, the prospects don't look good for education.

Comments

[Staggering Tuition Increase]

In a tough budget year I would guess that the House and Senate will pander less (see Gov's budget) and work seriously to try to create stability in our education funding process.

[Crusader]

Florida will continue its slide into Third World status unless we make education a priority.

We're getting skunked by other states.

Will someone explain to me how Amendment 1 reduces $138 million of income to schools?

4% increase is plenty in this environment. I think it should be lower, more like 2-3% near rate of inflation.

Everyone must live within their means including schools.

4:41pm, the $138 million figure is misleading.

Schools are pretty much exempted from Amendment 1. They estimate that figure from mainly portability. But 1 could argue that people would not have moved w/o portability. Plus the fact that they really did not "lose" any money, they just did not gain as much.

Thank you 5:41 - pretty much what I expected...

One another thought - I will not make as much this year as I did last year... will someone please make up the difference? Or should I not hold my breath and adjust my budget accordingly? The real hard part of this whole thing is that I thought I was going to be making more this year, and I spent, charged, etc. like I was going to...

Forget about educating our kids - after all the only jobs available in Florida are "service" industry - low pay and no benefits - but don't worry - they'll be paid in "sunshine."

Dear 4:41 p.m.,

There are two portions of Amendment #1 that have a fiscal impact on school funding.

Part #1 is the $25,000 exemption on tangible personal property for businesses and mobile home owners. This change will cost the schools about $70 million in 2008-2009. This change is a hard reduction of previously assessed property.

Part #2 is the SOH portability. Now, most portability looking forward is just a computed reduction in the previously estimated increases that were expected to taxable property values in the state, but in the first year, there are a small number of people who owned homesteads on Jan 1, 2007 who moved their homestead sometime since who are actually entitled to reduce the value of their current homestead (that was taxed at a higher rate in their last bill) for taxation in their 2009 bill. The first year impact for SOH portability was only about $70 million, but it grows to costing hundreds and hundreds of millions per year over a five year period.