June 29, 2004

BUDGET ALERT! Not Enough Money Allocated For HHS and Public Ed

DON'T JUST READ THIS & DELETE IT - ACT NOW AND PASS THIS EMAIL ON

The House and Senate have begun negotiations on a final budget and hope to have one completed by July 4th. Too little money has been allocated for the Public Education and HHS budgets, leaving budget negotiator's hands tied when it comes to avoiding cuts. There are also budget proposals that would make corporate tax cuts and expand corporate tax incentive programs. The funding for these alone would meet many of the immediate needs of Public Education and HHS and avoid cuts.

PLEASE ACT NOW

IT MAY BE YOUR LAST CHANCE TO HELP SAVE EDUCATION AND HHS PROGRAMS

This is likely the last budget alert of 2004! Legislative Leaders are working hard to complete the budget by the end of this week. We must flood legislator's offices with faxes, email and phone calls, just as for-profit interests do. HHS, Juvenile Justice and Public Schools compete with businesses for limited state dollars. Business has been winning the battle through numerous tax cuts and now growing cash give-aways. We must make it clear that government funded services are a high priority as well. Your calls and email have gotten some additional money allocated to HHS, now it is time to get more!

CONTACT YOUR LEGISLATORS (click here) AND TELL THEM
-- for a quick fax to legislators, cut and paste onto separate document from below this sentence down to...

NO MORE UNDERFUNDING & NO MORE CUTS

TO PUBLIC EDUCATION, HEALTH CARE AND HUMAN SERVICES

DO NOT GIVE AWAY MORE TAXES WHEN THERE IS NOT ENOUGH REVENUE TO MEET STATE PRIORITIES AND NEEDS.

EMAIL KEY LEGISLATORS by clicking here

or

FAX BUDGET LEADERS (Use the Above Message to Legislators with Bullet Points)

or CALL BUDGET LEADERS and leave a message

More Background Summary:

The House and Senate have begun negotiations on a final budget and hope to have one completed by July 4th. Too little money has been allocated for the Public Education and HHS budgets, leaving budget negotiator's hands tied when it comes to avoiding cuts. There are also budget proposals that would make corporate tax cuts and expand corporate tax incentive programs. The funding for these alone would meet most of the immediate needs of Public Education and HHS and avoid cuts.

HHS committee chairs began meeting last weekend and held a public meeting Monday morning where they approved a budget that spent at least $15 million over the target they were given. Even $15m over budget, this proposed HHS budget funded Health Choice only until January, cut 250 state HHS staff, halved funding for new child welfare workers and funded only 1/10th of the MRS expansion to all counties. After numerous newspaper and TV articles, plus a House Study Commission finding that child protective services (CPS) needs additional staff, new computer systems, staff training and more - it looks like the budget will cut welfare worker training and barely fund a few other recommended items, but not enough to completely implement any of them. Even so, budget leaders sent the HHS budget negotiators back to the table for more cuts. Latest rumors were that due to error, they would have to cut yet another $3 million.

Education budget negotiators are also hard at work trying to meet their target spending/cutting amount. To do this, they must make a $27 million cut to public school systems. This is on top of a $44 million cut to local schools put in place last year - cutting them a total of $71 million. At the same time the Governor has insisted that the legislature fully fund 3rd grade class size reduction, resulting in 1 teacher for 18 third-grade students, at a cost of $54 million. Current ratios are 1 to 22, so the Senate proposed cutting the class-size reduction in half - 1 teacher to 20 students - costing $21million, with the remainder going toward avoiding the $27 million cut to local school systems. Rumor has it that the Governor will veto anything less than 1-18 so the $27m cut remains.

Last snippets of gossip indicate that both the HHS and Education budgets do some good things as well, $12 million will go to disadvantaged students and new money is allocated for more school nurses. But most of the cuts could be avoided, while still finding the Governor's priorities, if roughly $50 million wasn't being spent on a test race track, corporate grants and give-aways, and corporate tax cuts. LEGISLATORS NEED TO HEAR FROM YOU IMMEDIATELY THAT IT IS TIME TO STOP CUTTING PUBLIC SCHOOLS, HEALTH CARE AND HUMAN SERVICES.

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