News

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

State Budget Signed by the Governor

A budget update from Deputy Superintendent Eric D. Smith

The governor signed the state budget on September 23, 2008, 85 days after its constitutional due date. Although the budget does not address the structural imbalance between revenues and expenditures at the state level, it does provide a very small increase in revenue over what the districts projected at the time of their budget adoption. In addition to the restoration of cuts made to several categorical programs, the state’s budget provides the districts with a very small (.68 percent) cost-of-living adjustment to its revenue limit, the source of funding for most of the districts general purpose expenditures.

There are already significant concerns that that revenue estimates were overstated in the state’s budget and the state could be looking at a significant deficit going into next year. As a result, the possibility of mid-year cuts to education is very real and it is likely that another protracted budget stalemate is in store for our districts again.