CHRIS FITZSIMON
The Senate is still on track to pass a budget this week that overall seems to meet the low expectations for it, with more cuts to human services and education, as lawmakers rush to complete their work and get home to campaign in the most volatile political climate in years.
The Senate budget, unveiled less than a week after the session convened, spends roughly the same amount of money as the proposal from Gov. Beverly Perdue, though it does not provide the small raise for teachers and payback to state employees for last year’s furlough that Perdue proposed.
The Senate plan forgoes the salary increases and uses the money to avoid the $135 million discretionary cut to public schools in Perdue’s plan, though local school systems will still have to find $80 million in reductions that were already scheduled.
Most of the initial coverage of the Senate budget focused on the efforts to do more to protect education from deep cuts, which is a storyline that’s flawed by its reliance on the conventional wisdom that public education is a bloated bureaucracy that can be repeatedly slashed without any ramifications for students, teachers or schools.
The Senate budget cuts 26 jobs in the Information Technology office in the Department of Public Instruction and another 10 positions in the academic services and instructional support department. Schools around the state rely on DPI for technology help and other support. They will have a harder time finding it next year if the cuts remain.
There are cuts in assistant principals and school personnel like counselors, librarians and media specialists, all of whom work with students and teachers every day. There are reductions on top of that to administrative staff in local school systems, the finance officers and associate superintendents that keep the systems running efficiently.
Last year’s budget already reduced the number of positions in DPI and made cuts in support personnel in local schools. The new cuts proposed would only make things worse.
There are plenty of non-administrative reductions too, like eliminating 2,000 slots in More at Four, which helps at-risk kids. Smart Start is sharply reduced, mentoring programs are suspended for a year and dropout prevention grants are abolished. It’s not very good news for kids struggling in school or people who are worried about them.
And education is the place the Senate says it protected. Human services fared even worse, with staggering reductions of more than $600 million beyond the cuts already scheduled for this year, despite the restoration of $40 million cut last session from mental health services.
Though few and far between, there are a few bright spots, like $14 million for the AIDS Drug Assistance Program that provides lifesaving medication for people living with HIV and the restoration of the Sentencing Services program that provides an alternative to prison, saving the state money and giving offenders a chance to turn their lives around while they continue to work and pay taxes.
The reaction to the Senate budget is as telling as the numbers in it. Many advocates are unhappy, but the sense of outrage seems to be missing, as if everyone’s agreed that it is the best they can do under the circumstances.
But is it? The Senate, for example, wouldn’t have to deny 2,000 at-risk kids the help that More at Four provides if it ended the ridiculous in-state tuition provision for out-of-state athletes at UNC schools that provides a $10 million windfall for athletic booster clubs.
There are plenty of other choices made in the spending plan that reflect not only the much-publicized unwillingness to consider new revenue sources but also the refusal to take on sacred cows like the in-state tuition provision or allowing multistate corporations to avoid paying the state taxes they should owe in North Carolina.
Lawmakers have a tough job this year, but they signed up for it. And this is not the best they can do.
Chris Fitzsimon is executive director of N.C. Policy Watch.