Legislature Opens with Proposals to Cut Education Funding

 Governor Proposes Cuts and Holds Out Hope for Sufficiency Funding

Governor Richardson gave his "State of the State" address to a joint session of the legislature this afternoon.  Referring to public education, He said the following:

We continue to make steady progress—aligning grades, improving accountability in our schools, and fighting to close the achievement gap.

As proof, the Quality Counts 2009 report moved us from 30th in the nation to 22nd and ranked us second in the nation for alignment among education, the economy and the workforce. That progress is a direct result of our steady commitment to better pay for high-quality teachers, increased investment in our schools and more accountability in our system.

I'm proud that this year the National Education Association named our state as the 3rd most aggressive in the nation for advancing average teacher salaries over the last ten years.

It's also time to change the school funding formula. A 2007 study found our current formula no longer focuses on the needs of schools and students. It also estimated our schools are underfunded by $350 million dollars.

Each year, many schools-especially small and rural ones— must ask for emergency supplemental funding just to keep their doors open. If we expect our schools to achieve, we must give them adequate tools to do so, and then demand accountability for their results.

This funding formula change will demand more resources and I support it. But an investment of this size deserves the direct approval of the voters.
 (for complete text of Governor's Remarks follow this link: State of the State.)

However, despite this optomistic tone, the Governor's budget proposals and those of the Legislative Finance Committee support cuts in education funding for the current year and reduced funding for next year.

The Associated Press reported the Budget proposals for public education before the current 60-day session of the New Mexico Legislature as follows:

The LFC recommended $2.5 billion for public school support, which is about $40 million more than the governor proposed but about 1.5 percent less than the current budget. Schools are cut under the spending plans by the LFC and the Richardson administration. The governor proposed state aid cuts of $30 million by allowing schools to have larger class sizes, $14 million by reducing one school day and $50 million by having schools pay for property and liability insurance costs with earmarked money for school maintenance.

These cuts represent unacceptable responses to our state's budget crisis. These cuts will increase class size and reduce the instructional time available to children. Most school employees (Teachers and others who work a normal school year) will lose one day of work and one day of pay---a .5% cut in salary!

As our first task this year, we must forcefully let our representatives know that any cut in public school funding is one cut too many.  Children cannot get back a year lost to overcrowed classes!  As legislative committees begin to craft cuts in the current year budget and propose reduced spending for next year, we need to insist on no cuts to education in the current year and the increased funding we need for next year.

Follow this link for a legislative alert and suggested message.

Legislative Alert on Funding Cuts