Textbook Money Slashed to Balance Budget

In the latest round of buget cuts Gov. Beshear spared specific items such as the SEEK funding formula, school employees’ health insurance and the Kentucky Teachers Retirement System but other areas, like textbooks, took a whallop.

At KSBA, Brad Hughes reports that,

Education Commissioner Terry Holliday told Kentucky superintendents Wednesday that the state’s ongoing revenue shortfall will mean a 12.7 percent cut in the Department of Education’s operating budget, and an overall reduction in state spending on P-12 programs by 2 percent.

In an e-mail to the superintendents, Holliday said, “Rather than constraining districts by applying the cut to all programs, KDE’s plan calls for the reduction to be applied to the Flexible Focus Funds and specifically to textbooks.

And how big a whallop? Here's an example of cuts in three districts.

District ------FY10 Initial------FY10 Revised
Daviess----------$352,173---------- $39,162
Fayette---------$1,165,815---------$132,627
Gallatin----------$52,025-----------$5,655