The Georgia General Assembly failed to adequately reduce cuts in education funding by under-utilizing available federal funds in violation of the national Recovery Act, according to a report released today by the Southern Education Foundation (SEF).
The SEF report calculates that the Georgia legislature cut state funding for education in the final 2009 and 2010 budgets during its recent regular session by a combined total of $1.05 billion even after allocating $666.5 million in Recovery Act funds to K-12 schools and public colleges and universities. But, the legislature had as much as $844.7 million available from the Recovery Act to allocate to reduce the state's education shortfalls.
“In effect, the State of Georgia has left on the table a minimum of $178.2 million in Recovery Act funds that should be used now to reduce school cutbacks at a time when the State has enacted severe cuts that will impair or prevent many of Georgia’s schoolchildren from receiving an adequate education,” the SEF report states.The Recovery Act requires states to use available “stabilization” funds as much as possible to restore education funding to the levels in their 2008 or original 2009 state budgets, whichever was higher. The State of Georgia has failed to do so.
SEF has written to US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan requesting that his department "assist and assure the State of Georgia" complies with the federal law. "Georgia is walking down the wrong path," stated SEF President Lynn Huntley who also is asking US Attorney General Eric Holder to cooperate with the Education Secretary in assuring enforcement of the Act's provisions.
SEF calculates that, to be in compliance with federal law, the State of Georgia should allocate approximately $119 million in additional Recovery Act funds to K-12 education, $47.7 million to the state's public four-year colleges and universities, and an addition of $10.9 million to the two-year colleges.
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