Education News in Alabama

June 8, 2005 (archive)

FY 2006 Education Trust Fund Budget: The Impact on K-12 Education

Despite many arguments, filibusters, negotiations and a gubernatorial veto, Alabama schools have a budget for 2006. From a short-term perspective, this is good news, as districts and schools can move forward with creating budgets, purchasing materials and textbooks, and implementing summer training for teachers. This summary highlights how the FY 2006 Education Trust Fund Budget will impact teaching and learning in the state.

Key elements of the FY 2006 budget include:

Alabama Reading Initiative—The Alabama Reading Initiative will receive an additional $15 million to fund training and reading coaches for new schools added in summer 2005. This funding is essential to continue the expansion of the nationally recognized ARI to all K-3 classrooms in the state.

Alabama Math, Science, Technology Initiative—The Alabama Math, Science, and Technology Initiative will receive $15 million (an additional $14,762,400) to fund training for three new sites and sustain three existing sites supported by federal funds that are scheduled to expire. This funding also includes the Science in Motion Initiative, which is an integral part of the statewide AMSTI. A recent evaluation of the AMSTI shows that students in AMSTI schools score higher on standardized reading and math tests than students in non-AMSTI schools.

Distance Learning—The budget includes $10.3 million to fund a statewide network of distance learning opportunities for students in Alabama's high schools. This will allow rural schools and systems with the limited local funding, the capacity to offer advanced courses to students who otherwise would not have the same offerings as their peers.

Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) Standards—The 1995 Accountability legislation requires the state to fund principal, assistant principal, librarian and guidance counselor units based on SACS standards. These standards changed in 2000 and the Legislature has not funded the amount necessary to stay current. The FY 2006 budget includes $28.5 million to meet SACS standards. This funding includes salaries and benefits for the required personnel listed above.

Other Current Expense—This category includes operations and maintenance expenses for schools, as well as fringe benefits for school personnel. Following proration in FY 2001, the Legislature approved the FY 2002 budget, which cut OCE by $99 million in order to balance the budget. To date, only $33 million of the $99 million has been restored. The FY 2006 budget includes an additional $32.5 million for OCE above the cost of fringe benefits. This increase in funding will help restore a portion of what was lost as a result of proration.

Teacher Incentives—The FY 2006 budget includes $725,000 to create a Teacher Incentive Pay Plan to lure experienced teachers to hard-to-staff districts and schools.

Fringe Benefits—The budget includes $693.7 million to cover the increase in health and retirement benefits for certified and non-certified employees, transportation employees, nurses and the Department of Education employees. This item represents an increase of $91 million from 2005. The rising costs of health care benefits continue to absorb a larger percentage of growth in education funding.

Textbooks, Library Enhancements, and Professional Development—These three areas were cut completely in FY 2004 and then restored in FY 2005, but at levels that did not come close to meeting the needs of students and teachers.

• The FY 2006 budget includes an increase in textbook funding from $57.50 per student to $67.50 per student. This increase brings the figure closer to the actual cost of textbooks per student, which is approximately $80.
• Library Enhancement will be increased from $135 per teacher unit to $200 per teacher unit, which will provide more books for students.
• Professional Development for teachers will be increased from $60 to $90 per teacher unit.

School Accountability Report Card—The allocation for the School Accountability Report Card was increased by $634,848 in order to print individual school, school system and state report cards. These report cards will provide parents, legislators and taxpayers easy access to such important information as student test score results, safety and discipline data and how education dollars are being spent.

Data Management—No Child Left Behind’s new Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) reports, which provide information broken down by student demographics, have increased the data management demands on the State Department of Education (SDE) and on individual school systems. To meet these demands, the FY 2006 budget includes $35,000 per system (a total of $4.6 million) to hire a Technology Coordinator to address data/technology issues within local schools systems and between the systems and the SDE. Additionally, the budget increases the allocation to the Student and Teacher Testing section within the SDE by $800,000 to address the increasing data demands created by federal and state accountability laws,

National Board for Professional Teaching Standards—Alabama is fortunate to have a very large number of national-board certified teachers. This number continues to grow annually. These teachers demonstrate their commitment to high standards by undergoing an intensive process to establish their knowledge and skills. The FY 2006 budget includes an additional $2.7 million to provide $5,000 classroom grants to teachers receiving certification in FY 2006 and to catch up the grants that were not funded in FY 2004 and FY 2005.

Teacher Pay Raise—The issue of a pay raise for teachers was one of the most contentious of the Legislative session. The FY 2006 includes an across-the-board raise of 6% for all certified and non-certified employees, which will go into effect on October 1. While a raise for teachers is most deserved, the Governor, many state policymakers, the Legislative Fiscal Office and senior SDE staff agree that a 6% raise cannot be sustained without unprecedented growth of 9.5% in the Education Trust Fund. The Governor had proposed a 4% raise and vetoed the education budget because he believed that a 6% pay increase would throw the state into proration in 2006. The Legislature overrode his veto, thus setting the stage for a likely budget crisis. State Superintendent Joe Morton is already warning local superintendents "not to get too attached" to the current budget, as he firmly believes there will be proration in 2006.

According to state law, teachers' salaries and benefits cannot be cut during proration, which means cuts are made to programs (like the Alabama Reading Initiative), Other Current Expenses (explained above) and classroom materials (textbooks, library books, professional development, etc.). This will have a severely negative impact on working conditions for teachers and learning conditions for students.

Conclusion

The FY 2006 Education Trust Fund Budget includes record amounts of funding for programs and initiatives that are critical to the academic success of Alabama's students. A+ is pleased that the Legislature approved Governor Riley's recommended funding for the ARI, AMSTI, distance learning, teacher incentives, and data management. However, the benefits of this budget may be short lived, as increases in teacher salaries and benefits will be very difficult to sustain without dramatic growth in current revenue or the introduction of new revenue sources -- neither of which is expected in FY 2006.

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