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Now that the dust has started to settle from the recent special session of the Indiana General Assembly, people are starting to understand the reality of the new biennial state budget and the effect it will have on our schools.
What also becomes clear is what Indiana House Democrats were fighting for in the special session. We wanted more funding for education to protect local schools from teacher layoffs, crowded classrooms and program cuts. We also wanted to create jobs for Hoosiers and protect our state from additional job losses.
When we started the special session, House Democrats were faced with a governor and a Senate Republican caucus that adopted a “take it or leave it” approach to a new state budget. Their negotiating position was that there was nothing to negotiate.
Against a group whose point of view was supposedly set in stone, House Democrats still were able to get improvements in the state budget. To their credit, Senate Republicans were willing to work with us to make changes in the budget to address some areas of concern.
On public school funding, House Democrats were able to get more than $100 million in state support for K-12 above and beyond what the governor was proposing. Make no mistake that this school funding formula still will be causing pain, but its effect will be less than what would have happened if the governor’s plan would have been in the final budget.
On funding for higher education, House Democrats were able to improve state support by $100 million. The governor had proposed a 4 percent cut in that support for our colleges and universities. Our actions kept funding for higher education at current levels and reduced the risk of tuition increases to make up for losses in funding.
On job creation, House Democrats were able to get an additional $400 million in new construction projects for colleges and universities across Indiana included in the budget.
In all, there are nearly $650 million in projects in this budget, which means putting people back to work and improving the services and the quality of education delivered on our campuses.
On job protection, House Democrats were able to eliminate a retroactive tax provision from the budget. If this provision had been allowed to stand, it would have devastated many large employers throughout the state, such as AM General and almost 100 other businesses across Indiana. Removing this provision means we saved as many as 6,000 jobs in Indiana.
These are victories, but there is no denying that the budget passed on June 30 still is going to create problems across Indiana. No House Democrat is satisfied with this budget. Even those who voted for it had their concerns.
House Democrats did what they could to take some of the sting out of efforts to hurt our public schools, our colleges and universities and our biggest employers. It could have been far worse.
As we get closer to the new school year, the havoc that is about to fall upon many urban and rural schools across Indiana will be gaining more attention. Teachers are going to be laid off, programs are going to be cut, and class sizes are going to increase.
And the problems will only get worse in the second year of this budget. More than half the school corporations across Indiana will see state support cut, which means the cuts in personnel and programs will only get worse. Because the governor’s plan provides significantly less money for Indiana schools in the second year, he has endorsed what is, for lack of a better term, a one-year budget.
My hope is that the unfortunate pain this budget will generate grabs the public’s attention and causes them to rise up and work with lawmakers to find ways to fund our local schools fairly and adequately. If greater public awareness leads to a better way to help our children, then some good will have come from the budget deliberations this year.
