Friday News Roundup: Week of March 15-19

At Ed Money Watch, we discuss and analyze major issues affecting education funding. In our Friday News Roundup, we try to highlight interesting stories that might otherwise get overlooked. These stories emphasize how federal and state policy changes can affect local schools and districts.

 <p><b>Cuts to New Jersey School Aid Much Deeper than Expected</b></p>     <p><b>Kansas</b><b> Budget Plan Would Cut  School Budget to Avoid Tax Increase </b></p>     <p><b>Louisiana Universities Brace for More Cuts</b></p>     <p><b>South Carolina</b><b> Cigarette Tax Increase Isn’t Enough, Say  State Education Leaders</b></p>     <p>&nbsp;</p><p><b>Cuts to New Jersey School Aid Much Deeper than Expected</b><br>New Jersey Governor Chris Christie this week released the final amounts of <a href="http://www.philly.com/philly/news/homepage/88337302.html">state formula aid</a> each school district will receive in the coming 2011 fiscal year. In most cases school districts will receive dramatically less than what they were originally told to expect. Most school districts will see formula aid cut by about 5 percent of their total operating budgets, which include money from local property taxes and other sources. This means that some wealthy districts will not receive any formula aid from the state. District officials must now provide drastically different budget proposals to their county executive superintendents by Monday, March 22<sup>nd</sup> and will have until April 3<sup>rd</sup> to make final revisions. The cuts to school aid are a result of Governor Christie’s attempt to close an $11 billion gap in the state’s fiscal year 2011 budget without raising taxes. <a href="http://www.philly.com/philly/news/homepage/88337302.html">More here…</a></p>    <p><b>Kansas</b><b> Budget Plan Would Cut  School Budget to Avoid Tax Increase </b><br>Under a plan passed by the Kansas House of Representatives Appropriations Committee this week, <a href="http://www.kansascity.com/2010/03/18/v-print/1822958/no-tax-increase-but-schools-would.html">taxes in the state would not increase</a> in fiscal year 2011. However, the K-12 education budget would be cut by $172 million as a result of lower revenues. The state’s expenditure on education would remain the same as last year, but no funds will be provided to replace the $172 million in federal stimulus money that school districts received in fiscal year 2010. Per pupil base aid from the state would also decrease by $131 to $3,882 under this plan. Kansas Governor Mark Parkinson had proposed that the state increase it’s spending for K-12 education by $33 million to partly replace the federal stimulus funds. <a href="http://www.kansascity.com/2010/03/18/v-print/1822958/no-tax-increase-but-schools-would.html">More here…</a></p>    <p><b>Louisiana Universities Brace for More Cuts</b><br>Louisiana higher education leaders are preparing to <a href="http://www.2theadvocate.com/news/88516962.html">cut $85 million</a> from their current fiscal year 2010 budgets after surprisingly low tax collections were reported for the month of February. Governor Bobby Jindal had announced last month that he planned to spare higher education from more cuts this year, but plans changed when February tax collections came in $400 million short of economists’ projections. In the last 15 months, the state has cut college and university budgets by about 20 percent, or nearly $250 million. Higher education leaders say it will be difficult to make it through the spring semester with even more reductions to their budgets. <a href="http://www.2theadvocate.com/news/88516962.html">More here…</a></p>    <p><b>South Carolina</b><b> Cigarette Tax Increase Isn’t Enough, Say  State Education Leaders</b><br>The South Carolina House of Representatives pulled an all-nighter on Wednesday, emerging with a <a href="http://www2.wspa.com/news/2010/mar/18/7/sc-lawmakers-approve-5b-spending-plan-ar-65759/">budget plan</a> that includes a 30-cent tax increase on each pack of cigarettes sold in the state. The House plan would use the increased tax revenue – estimated at $88 million – to start a special fund for health care needs. It’s unclear whether the state Senate will approve the tax increase at all, but state education leaders complain that the proposed increase isn’t enough. They say the tax increase should be $1.27 a pack, which would bring South Carolina’s cigarette tax up to the national average from the lowest in the nation. Education leaders propose to use the additional tax revenue to prevent teacher layoffs, along with support the health care fund proposed in the House budget. <a href="http://www2.wspa.com/news/2010/mar/18/7/sc-lawmakers-approve-5b-spending-plan-ar-65759/">More here…</a></p><!--break-->