Brian Murphy - bmurphy@idahostatesman.com
Published: 03/27/09
Idaho’s legislative budget-writing committee approved payroll cuts for public school administrators and teachers Friday over Democratic opposition.
The budgets approved by the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee include a 5 percent cut in money from the state to school districts for public school administrators and a 2.63 percent cut for public school teachers and classified staff.
That doesn't necessarily mean employee pay will be cut by those percentages. The cuts are in payroll budgets, not individuals' pay. School districts, not the Legislature, set individual salaries.
Tom Luna, the state schools superintendent, worked closely with JFAC leaders in coming up with the payroll plan. He said the cuts should not cause any teacher to lose a job.
But the reductions could force some districts to turn to their reserve funds to make up for the shortfalls, school officials say.
Additionally, the measures approved by the committee include freezing the salary grid for teachers for one year and phasing out an early retirement program.
“Nobody in this room put us in this situation,” said co-chairman Dean Cameron, R-Rupert. “This situation was brought to us by the economy.”
The cuts passed the committee on a 16-4 party-line vote. Boise Democratic Sen. Nicole LeFavour said previous school funding decisions have put the state in a perilous situation.
“We’ve made our schools live so close to the bone that when we got here today, we are, in essence, breaking our public school system,” she said.
The committee also recommended an operations budget that includes disallowing high-density districts access to the cost-per-mile transportation program. This change will cost the Boise School District $1.4 million. The budget also eliminates the state reimbursement for busing on field trips.
The state would shift $20 million in general funds out of schools and replace the money with federal cash under the new economic-stimulus law. This decision led to a sharp exchange between Cameron and LeFavour. LeFavour called the move "irresponsible." Cameron compared the move to spending money out of a checking account or savings account. "It makes very little difference," Cameron said.
The state would use $60 million in stimulus money in the fiscal year 2010 budget. The state would not use any of the $114 million in its Public Education Stabilization Fund for the fiscal year 2010 budget, instead saving it to backfill the budget later if the economy continues to deteriorate.
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