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Tough Choices in Tough Times

vonzastrowc's picture
By Claus von Zastrow on June 22, 2009

A Las Vegas Sun article about Nevada's use of stimulus funds highlights the challenges many states and districts feel as they balance the desire for innovation against the need to fill budget holes:

Although state lawmakers increased basic support to schools by $38 per student — bringing the statewide average to $5,251 for the upcoming fiscal year — local districts will actually see a slight drop in funding over the biennium because of lower-than-expected local property and vehicle registration taxes.

The real difference over the next two years will be that a greater share of the state’s higher education funding will come from Washington, rather than from locally generated taxes. That in turn will mean the state will likely have enough money to meet the K-12 budget obligations.

And although local districts are grateful for the federal help in staunching the bleeding, there is also frustration that the dollars are needed to keep basic services in place, rather than to revive popular programs killed during the early-round budget cuts or to launch new initiatives.

Link to this story: http://www.publicschoolinsights.org/tough-choices-tough-times

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