Commish says KDE will eliminate $11.5 million in grant appropriations

This from the Herald-Leader:

Colleges consider ways to cut budgets
EDUCATION FUNDING

FRANKFORT --A 3 percent budget cut means a $34.5 million hit to the state university and community college system, which includes $10 million at the University of Kentucky.

While Kentucky's public schools will be spared from the budget cut that Gov. Steve Beshear announced Thursday, the state's public colleges and universities will be looking for ways to trim expenses in the short term and seeking out new strategies to meet long-term goals...

...Jon Draud, the state's new education commissioner, said the cut will cause the Kentucky Department of Education to eliminate about $11.5 million that had been appropriated for grants but hasn't been spent.

Draud, a former Republican state representative from Edgewood in Northern Kentucky, said he empathized with Beshear having to grapple with a shortfall that is "not his fault or Ernie Fletcher's," referring to the previous governor, who lost to Beshear in November.

Draud said the biggest problem caused by the state shortfall is "you can't do a lot of long-range planning." ...

Or, one might suggest, the problem was actually caused when the legislature and the governor failed at long term planning in favor of satisfying more immediate concerns.