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Education spending and a respect for the law

By Rep. David W. Floyd

Kentucky’s constitution requires that the General Assembly conclude its business before the stroke of midnight on April 15. However, the Legislature took the extraordinary step of stopping the clocks during this year’s session in order to complete business.

Only God can really stop time; our attempt to do so was irresponsible and displayed contempt for our Constitution and for the rule of law.

The House also ignored the Constitution during last year’s special session, when it adjourned without the consent of the Senate. It’s irrational to expect citizens to respect the law if lawmakers do not.

Not only did we not follow the Constitution, we failed to adequately address our most pressing issue – fixing the state’s retirement system. We studied it, even delaying a vote last year in order to complete new reports before the 2008 legislative session. We hired a new actuary, convened a panel and formulated plans. Yet in the end, we did not close the deal.

It’s reasonable to ask: “What would you have done, Dave?”

The simple answer is that I would have adjourned on time. Also, I would not have delayed negotiations on the pension crisis until the 11th hour. While it’s important for legislators to listen and thoroughly weigh the options, action must be taken.

When tough choices require hard decisions, not everyone is going to be happy.

For example, the basic responsibility of the 2008 General Assembly was to pass a budget. A budget was passed, but many are not happy with the spending plan. That’s probably a good thing. As a general rule I believe that if we come out of a budget session and everyone is happy, then we spent way too much money.

Our first budget priority is education. About 63 percent of your tax dollars allocated by this year’s legislature were spent on education. However, if you read the newspapers or listen to news commentators on television or radio, you might think that we cut spending on local schools. But we didn’t.

For 2009, we increased spending for K-12 education by nearly $20 million in 2009. In 2010, K-12 spending will increase another $55 million, making the total budget a little more than $7.75 billion.

The cuts you may have heard about were in certain programs. Extended school services and professional-development funding were each cut by 58 percent, to $13.2 million and $6.3 million respectively. A teacher-mentorship project suffered a 12-percent cut; spending for the Safe Schools program was reduced by 55 percent to $4.7 million and Read to Achieve funding was cut by 4 percent, to $22.5 million.

Read to Achieve is the most important of these programs, and probably the only one that truly affects the education of children. The other programs did not exist, or were not significantly funded, a decade or two ago. They were added over time as extra money became available. Private schools, I’m told, don’t have near that kind of extra money to spend and they seem to do just fine.

Administrators and school boards have to make do with the money we give them to run their schools. They make hard decisions, even more difficult because they are close to the individuals who are affected. I always depend on their input when making legislative decisions, and they tell me that these cuts are not good.

So if programs are being cut while additional funding is being appropriated, where is the money going?

Primarily, it’s being used to fund increased salary and benefits for teachers and classified employees. It’s not unlike a business, where your major operating expense is personnel costs.

Currently, the average Kentucky teacher makes $59,815 in salary and benefits, which, as a result of the new budget, will increase to $61,052 – a raise of 2.1 percent. Average classified employees, who make $27,928, will receive a 3.3-percent raise to $28, 846.

So, while we increased funding for local schools, tough choices were made on some programs of questionable educational value so that teachers could be properly compensated.

Creating a fair budget means doing what’s in the best interest of all Kentuckians by determining our highest funding priorities. When our spending desire exceeds our spending ability, hard decisions are required.

Making those tough choices is what lawmakers are elected to do.

– Rep. David W. Floyd, R-Bardstown, was elected in 2005.

 

The Bluegrass Institute is an independent research and educational institution offering free-market solutions to Kentucky's most pressing problems.

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