Education spending a key difference for House, Senate

This from Ronnie Ellis of the CNHI News Service from the Glasgow Daily Times:

FRANKFORT — One of the big issues the free conference committee will have to resolve to get a budget agreement between the House and Senate is how much will be spent on education and human services.

House budget chairman Harry Moberly, D-Richmond, said “securing the revenue to have an adequate education and human services budget” is the House top priority.

He reiterated that stance Wednesday during the budget conference, telling Senate members the House wants to resolve those issues before going on to such questions as capital projects and water and sewer projects in single counties.

House Speaker Jody Richards, D-Bowling Green, said the same thing: “We would like to get education and human services – those big things – out of the way before we deal with projects.”The differences in the two chambers’ budgets affect both public schools and the state’s higher education institutions.

The House would restore – and add a little to help cover teacher raises – to current levels the basic funding formula for elementary and secondary education. The House budget increases the SEEK formula in 2008/09 by $12 million and by $30 million in the following year. It would fund teacher salary increases of 1 percent in the first year and 3 percent in the second.The Senate on the other hand does not increase the formula and calls for 1 percent salary increases in each year....