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November 29, 2004
Funding - a loss
The House and Senate passed a $388.4 billion omnibus spending bill before the holidays. The measure consists of nine spending bills, including funding for education programs. Unfortunately, funding for many domestic programs like education was subject to a 0.8% across-the-board cut, affecting all non-defense and non-homeland security spending. As a result, our key funding priorities—Title I and special education—received far less than the amounts proposed in the President's budget request to Congress and in earlier measures passed by the House and Senate Appropriations Committees. Here's the tally:
- Title I Grants will be funded at $12.8 billion, an increase of $500 million instead of the $1 billion increase proposed earlier.
- Special Education (IDEA) Grants will be funded at $10.7 billion, an increase of $607 million instead of the $1 billion to $1.2 billion increase proposed earlier.
- Title V Grants for Innovative Education Programs will be funded at $198.4 million, a $98.1 million cut from FY 2004. It's worth noting that school board member outreach to members of Congress helped restore some funding for Title V grants, which was zero funded in a recommendation from the Senate Appropriations Committee and totaled just $20 million in the original House appropriations bill.
Here's the problem: Having run up colossal deficits, the feds are looking to whack budgets, and the prime targets will be those line items that they think will provoke relatively less backlash. Kids don't vote. If Congress gets the impression now that schools will just roll over and take it, bigger cuts may be on the way, all the while NCLB demands get higher and grow more costly.
Last week,
NSBA sent
this letter to Congress expressing our deep disappointment with the paltry education funding levels. The letter reads, in part: "The under funding of education programs places local school districts in a quandary about how to achieve the goals of No Child Left Behind and the education of children with disabilities. It is a reality that these federal programs, will result in local tax increases in many communities to offset this federal shortfall when preparing the budgets for the upcoming school year. For sure, the only alternative will be to cut programs, resulting in another disservice to students."
Posted November 29, 2004 12:00 AM
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