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This and That By TEENA MAENZA What’s wrong with this picture? Gov. Rick Perry’s office is projecting a budget surplus in the hundreds of millions of dollars for the next biennium, while almost every school district in the state is struggling to pay its bills. From small districts like Columbia-Brazoria and Sweeny to mega-districts like Cy-Fair and Humble, schools across the state find themselves unable to meet even the basic expenses of educating their students as they face huge increases in fuel and energy costs. Surely the legislators we elected are going to do something about this, aren’t they? We elect them to oversee things like public school funding, don’t we? The Legislature doesn’t meet until next year, but so far, no one has stepped forward to offer any proposed bills to correct the imbalances in state education funding. To be fair, for legislators the issue of school finance is like a mine field hidden under an icy mountain slope. Poor districts don’t get enough from the state; rich districts pay too much to the state. No matter which way you step, if you make one district happy, a dozen others will be angry. The state has spent dozens of years in court being sued by districts for the disparities, but for all the time and effort spent on the issue, school funding still remains grossly unfair to almost everyone across the board. Take the issue of transportation, for example. The state is still giving districts the same transportation allotments they received in 1984. Anyone out there spending the same amount on gas and vehicles today that you were spending in 1984? I don’t think so. And yet our schools are supposed to somehow magically absorb gas prices that have quadrupled in a year’s time. CBISD’s transportation allowance from the state this year amounts to about half of what the district will spend on diesel fuel, not to mention the salaries of the drivers, cost of the buses, etc. Sweeny ISD, as a “rich” district, will see an increase in its taxable value this year, which means more money coming in to the district. But because of the increase, the district will get a double whammy from the state. First, the state will decrease the amount of aid it gives to the district, and it will also increase the amount that SISD has to send to other districts for recapture. The net result is that Sweeny will have roughly the same amount to spend as it had last year. Sweeny, a “rich” district, can’t afford to offer its students some of the classes students in “poor” districts have the opportunity to take – classes like elementary school art. CBISD had to cut the number of instructional days by three this year in an effort to save money. While the legislators may not be willing to take on school funding as a whole, they should at least be forced to take a hard look at the many unfunded mandates. Don’t force the districts to take on any new programs or regulations unless you’re willing to give them the money to do the job. Will any legislators step forward and fight for our schools? We need to demand that they do, or lose their jobs if they don’t. Our vote is the only chance our schools, and our children, have for the future. |
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