Friday News Roundup: Week of May 23-27

N.C. Senate puts forth its budget

Michigan Senate OKs plan cutting university funding by 15 percent

Pennsylvania House passes budget

South Carolina Senate approves $6 billion budget

N.C. Senate puts forth its budget
The North Carolina Senate released this week its budget, slightly raising education funding for public K-12 schools, colleges, and universities over the levels proposed by the state House.  North Carolina Governor Bev Perdue continued her push for increased education spending, taking issue with cuts made by the Senate and House budgets.  The Senate proposal would strip funding for teacher assistants in all grades except kindergarten and would reform class sizes to fifteen students per teacher for students in first- through third-grades.  More here…

Michigan Senate OKs plan cutting university funding by 15 percent
A Michigan budget bill passed this week by the Senate Republicans slashes operations funding for the state’s public universities by fifteen percent of this year’s budget, and requires schools to cap tuition increases at about seven percent under the threat of more cuts.  Universities face greater spending reductions than either community colleges or public schools.  The bill will be combined with the House-passed state budget plan and forwarded to Republican Governor Rick Snyder for his signature.  More here…

Pennsylvania House passes budget
The Republican-led Pennsylvania House this week passed a bill that returns to the budget some education funding cut by Governor Tom Corbett from the previous year’s spending.  Staring down a June 30 deadline to complete the budget process and send the legislation to Gov. Corbett, lawmakers still have a substantial amount of work to do.  The House budget has been sent to the Senate for further debate.  The House-passed version restores $380 million in higher education and an additional $210 million for K-12 education.  More here…

South Carolina Senate approves $6 billion budget
A $6 billion budget plan for South Carolina passed by the Senate this week increased funding for K-12 education over the original budget proposal, thanks in part to unexpectedly high tax revenues.  The highly contentious debate proceeded for over a month in the Senate and ended in a tighter-than-usual vote.  The budget is now being sent to the state House, and after passage will be sent to Republican Governor Nikki Haley.  More here…