Oklahoma school districts to receive fewer funds with approved budget

The state Education Department finalized a budget Tuesday that drastically cuts school district funding and ends some statewide programs, while protecting early childhood education and remediation for high-stakes testing.

BY MEGAN ROLLAND Comment on this article

Leave a comment

Published: June 30, 2010

The state Education Department approved a $2.38 billion education budget Tuesday that gives schools $156 million less in state funding than was budgeted last year.

"Students will lose a lot,” state Superintendent of Schools Sandy Garrett said. "They will probably not have new textbooks. They will have bigger class sizes. They will have fewer opportunities for field trips and enrichment opportunities.”

An informal survey by the state Education Department indicated school districts lost 1,800 certified teaching positions and 1,300 support staff positions due to reduced revenue.

Garrett said the education appropriations bill was passed without line-item instructions, and for the first time in her 20 years as superintendent she had full discretion over program funding.

The state Board of Education approved Garrett's recommended budget unanimously and praised her ability to stretch limited dollars.

Left unscathed in Garrett's budgets were the $10 million Early Childhood Initiative for prekindergarten programs and $8.6 million in remediation for students who fail the state's high-stakes tests — Achieving Classroom Excellence, which by 2012 will affect student's ability to graduate.

"I feel it's a miracle that we've been able to balance and still protect some of the schools,” Garrett said. "We're focusing on the basics now.”

Her recommended budget cuts $18.2 million from special programs and uses that money to fill a funding gap caused by health insurance increases.

Without that allocation, school districts would have had to pass along increases in insurance premiums to certified and support employees or find the money in their budget.

For the fiscal year that ends today, the Legislature set aside $458.5 million specifically for line items within the agency, such as school lunch programs, adult education, health insurance increases and a number of other projects.

Page 1 of 2

1 2 Next