| MOBILE
REGISTER
Governor's budget cuts favor K-12
04/20/01
By JEFF AMY
Capital Bureau
MONTGOMERY - Ending weeks of uncertainty and
indecision, Gov. Don Siegelman said Thursday that he would
stick to his original plan to cut colleges and other items
more than K-12 schools as he slashes the state education
budget.
The governor said K-12 schools would be cut by 3.76
percent, while two-year colleges, four-year colleges and
all other items in the Education Trust Fund would be
sliced by 11.17 percent. That's about $110 million to be
cut from local school systems, $129 million from higher
education, and $24 million from other ETF spending.
Siegelman must cut about $266 million from the $4.3
billion school budget to make up for lagging revenues. In
doing so, Siegelman said he is now bound by a provision
enacted during the 1995 overhaul of state school funding
that prohibits reductions in the salary of any K-12
employee.
"The 1995 legislative act protects all salaries in
K-12," he said in a statement. "That is the law,
and until the Legislature changes it or the Alabama
Supreme Court reinterprets it, I must follow it."
Opponents dispute the interpretation of that law, or
that Siegelman is bound by the present interpretation by
the attorney general. Thursday's decision prompted
immediate predictions of a court challenge by the state's
public universities, which have gone to court to fight
previous efforts to saddle them with larger cuts.
Historically, cutting budgets in mid-year, a process
called proration, has been accomplished by cutting an
identical percentage out of every item in a particular
fund. If such across-the-board cuts were applied this
year, all education fund agencies would take a 6.2 percent
hit.
But Siegelman claims he is bound by a 1995 law as
interpreted by Attorney General Bill Pryor in an opinion
dated Feb. 28 of this year. Pryor's interpretation said
it's legal for Siegelman to compute proration by removing
K-12 salaries, but that there are probably other legal
ways as well.
That opinion was imported into a lawsuit brought by the
Alabama Association of School Boards, the Mobile County
school system, and other systems, which claim proration is
illegal because it denies education essential to children.
But the order similar to Pryor's opinion that was issued
by Montgomery County Circuit Judge Tracy McCooey was
frozen April 11 by the Alabama Supreme Court.
Lt. Gov. Steve Windom said that decision by the supreme
court should have been the signal for Siegelman to return
to the traditional across-the-board method.
"He has the court's stay of Judge McCooey to
disregard the attorney general's opinion and cut at the
6.2 percent rate," Windom said.
Paul Hubbert, executive secretary of the Alabama
Education Association, denied that Siegelman had such a
free hand.
"We believe this is what the law requires,"
Hubbert said. "... For him to have done otherwise
would have left him personally vulnerable to litigation
since he would not be following legal advice of the
state's chief attorney."
Windom predicted the colleges would ask the Supreme
Court to stay the governor's action.
"I'm hopeful the court will issue an injunction
requiring the governor to cut at 6.2 percent," Windom
said.
Windom and other Republicans want to rewrite this
year's education budget to reflect 6.2 percent cuts,
technically taking the state out of proration and removing
the decision from the court's hands. Majority Democrats in
the Legislature have stymied those efforts.
Gordon Stone, head of the Higher Education Partnership,
a college lobby group, would not confirm plans for legal
action, but said the universities will fight.
"We will do whatever we have to do to defend our
people's rights to be treated equally," said Stone,
who accused the governor of a "lack of concern"
for colleges.
Gordon Moulton, president of the University of South
Alabama, echoed Stone, saying he, too, wants "all
levels of education" to "be treated
equally."
On Wednesday, university presidents rejected
Siegelman's offer of $100 million in bond money to make up
the difference in treatment. College chiefs say they can't
take the money because allowing unequal proration
establishes a dangerous precedent, and because using bonds
to pay for operating expenses is bad policy.
Siegelman said he remained "sympathetic" to
higher education and called on the presidents to change
their minds.
"I have and continue to encourage higher education
to accept this safety net to soften the blow," he
said.
Local education officials reacted cautiously to the
Siegelman announcement.
"It certainly is good news if it's true and if it
doesn't go to appeal," Mobile County Assistant
Superintendent of Business Operations Charles Willcox
said. "But until I see the check, I don't have much
to say."
Since most of the local property tax revenues have come
into the system in the past few months, it will be at
least another month before the system is forced to spend
money as soon as it comes in.
Sandra Sims-deGraffenried, executive director of
Alabama Association of School Boards, said more money now
means school boards will borrow less and pay less
interest, even if cuts revert to 6.2 percent later. So
Sims-deGraffenried said she would advise against saving
any of the windfall to protect against a reversal.
"We'd say, when you get the money, spend it,"
The picture is less rosy at Faulkner State Community
College, said Gary Branch, the school's president.
"We would have to take additional measures to meet
those additional cuts," Branch said Thursday.
"Some would be so devastating that I've rather not
speculate on them right now." |
