Friday News Roundup: Week of November 9-13

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.

New Mexico Lawmaker Proposes Budget Fix Using Endowment Fund

Colorado Cuts to Education Bigger than Expected

More Cuts for South Carolina Schools

New Mexico Lawmaker Proposes Budget Fix Using Endowment Fund
New Mexico State Senate Majority Leader Michael Sanchez this week laid out a proposal to tap into the state’s $9 billion Land Grant Permanent Fund to help balance the state’s budget. The fund makes yearly payments to school districts, universities, hospitals, and other public institutions. Sanchez’s plan would take $2 billion from the fund to pay for these and other critical government operations and minimize tax hikes over the coming years. Sanchez also seeks to bolster state finances for projected state deficits for next year and potentially slow economic growth over the next few years. The state already needs $400 million to fill a hole in the fiscal year 2011 budget. Opponents to the proposal claim that removing the money will slow the fund’s growth and result in smaller payments to schools and the other beneficiaries later. If Sanchez’s proposal passes the state legislature, voters will have to approve it in November because it includes a change to the state’s constitution. More here…

Colorado Cuts to Education Bigger than Expected
Cuts to spending on K-12 education in Colorado for fiscal year 2011 will total 6.1 percent despite Governor Bill Ritter’s claims that it is only 4.6 percent. According to a calculation by the Colorado Department of Education, cuts to spending on education in the fiscal year 2011 budget total $374.1 million, or 6.1 percent of what schools would have normally expected for that fiscal year. Governor Ritter’s calculation, they say, made cuts appear smaller because it was done using the current fiscal year 2010 budget as a baseline. The cuts to spending on schools will likely mean increasing class sizes, teacher and staff layoffs, salary cuts or freezes, and possible service reductions. However, categorical funding for transportation, special education, and some other programs will not be affected by the proposed cuts. Funding for full-day kindergarten programs is also expected to hold steady. For higher education, Governor Ritter’s plan includes a modest $1.98 million growth in spending despite a projected decline in support from federal stimulus funds. The spending growth would come from a proposed 9 percent tuition increase. More here…

More Cuts for South Carolina Schools
The South Carolina Board of Economic Advisors this week released a reduced estimate of state revenue, citing concerns over the nearly half million people in the state who are unemployed. Given this new estimate, Governor Mark Sanford told the state’s K-12 schools, colleges, and prisons to prepare to cut another $120 million from their fiscal year 2010 budgets. This comes on top of a $328 million cut from the current budget to these services over the summer. It is not yet clear where exactly cuts will come from at the state level, so school districts are waiting for more information before they make any final decisions on where to trim their budgets. More here…

Briefly Noted

• Alabama Board of Education endorses proposed “plan of survival” for K-12 schools.
• Illinois budget cuts squeeze the state’s universities.