Greetings,

 From EM President Tom Dooher...

March 17, 2009

Governor releases little-changed budget proposal
Today, Gov. Tim Pawlenty released his revised budget proposal for the 2010-11 biennium, which is based on the state's February economic forecast and the infusion of federal money from the economic stimulus law.

The revised budget is not surprising, and still does not address the fundamental problem: a broken education funding system.

His new proposal uses that federal stimulus money to provide small increases to his original proposals for K-12 schools and public higher education system. Much of that earlier funding, however, was devoted to making the Q Comp teacher alternative pay program mandatory and rewarding districts that increased student achievement. Pawlenty's news release:
http://www.governor.state.mn.us/mediacenter/pressreleases/PROD009403.html  from today made no mention of those programs.

The governor's revised plan still calls for $1.3 billion in K-12 accounting shifts to help close the state budget gap, which will force many school districts to borrow money to meet their expenses.

In short, the budget still fails to focus attention on what's needed: equitable, sustainable, predictable and sufficient funding for our schools.

In solidarity,

Tom Dooher
President