Idaho school chief says cuts have reached a limit

Sunday, October 4, 2009 10:23 AM PDT

LEWISTON (AP) — State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Luna says public schools will not be able to absorb any more budget cuts without hurting student achievement.

Luna discussed his proposed budget for the next fiscal year while making stops earlier this week at the Idaho Indian Education Summit and Partnerships in Education conference in Lewiston, the Lewiston Tribune reported.

Gov. C.L. “Butch’’ Otter, for the second straight year, has ordered state agencies, universities and colleges to hold back spending as Idaho suffers more fallout from the economic recession and high unemployment.

This time, the governor is trying to offset a $151 million shortfall in state revenue. Otter is asking the Legislature to pull $49.3 million from a rainy day account for education to avoid any immediate cuts to public schools.

While making stops in northern Idaho, Luna said his budget proposal for the 2011 fiscal year seeks the same amount of funding as the current fiscal year’s budget, plus an additional $20 million to $25 million to pay for enrollment growth.

ADVERTISEMENT

Legislative budget writers set the 2010 fiscal year budget for public schools at $1.3 billion, down about 7.7 percent from the previous fiscal year, which ended June 30.

More than a dozen school districts, struggling to make ends meet, declared financial emergencies this year under a new Idaho law that allowed them to cut teacher pay, hours and contract length. Luna said Idaho lawmakers have a difficult task ahead.

‘’There are very few things the Idaho Constitution says the state has to fund, but K-12 education is one of those. That should set the priorities,’’ Luna said. ‘’The governor has been clear that some things state government is doing now, we may not be able to do in the future if we’re going to meet our constitutional obligations.’’

In August, the state Department of Education released scores from Idaho Standards Achievement Tests showing about 66 percent of Idaho schools made adequate progress under the federal No Child Left Behind law in the most recent school year. That number has nearly tripled since two years ago, when about a quarter of schools made adequate progress, Luna said.

‘’We’ve seen a tremendous increase,’’ he said. ‘’Education is moving in the right direction. My message to the Legislature is that we can’t do anything to put that progress at risk.’’

———

Information from: Lewiston Tribune, http://www.lmtribune.com