[watch the video below]
Several of us in education are organizing to take our concerns to the legislature over the next few weeks. There needs to be a “real” conversation about what should to be done to fund education.
The legislature will pass a Tax Bill that will increase revenues in the range of $1.5B sometime in the next 2 weeks; it will be vetoed by the Governor. There are not enough votes to override the veto. This will result in the Bills of both the House and Senate being about $1.5B short of balancing budgets. Then, the orders will go out from leadership to make additional cuts. K-12 will not only be cut more, we may take the brunt of the cuts.
One likely stategy will be to make a major aid/levy shift in the amount of about $2B. This will cost on average $30/pu each year for lost interest earnings. In addition this money will be eventually shifted back with the money coming from education funds.
I am going to continue to get information from the MASA and SEE (our lobbyists); watch this site for updates. In the meantime, continue to contact our representatives and others that you know. We need to push them hard while asking, “Do you care about our future?”
Watch the Pension Bill as it relates to TRA pension fund and for those hired after 1989; we need solutions for these, but it is going to be an added cost. Please tell “them” that we need the levy authority to make these contributions.
