Governor’s Revised Recommended FY10-11 Budget

Highlights:

• No tax increases
• Protects against future economic decline by maintaining a prudent level of reserves
• Reduces spending  by 2.4% compared to current budget
• Only increase in the budget is for public education:
  • K-12 Education
    • School corporations will receive an average increase of 2%
    • Every school corporation will receive more funding per student compared to the current budget
    • At least 35 states have proposed or actually cut funding for K-12 education
  • Creates “Education Trigger,” an automatic additional funding mechanism for K-12 education if actual revenues exceed forecast.  For every two dollars actual revenues exceed forecast, one will automatically go to education
  • Student Financial Aid  (State Student Assistance Commission)
    • 3% increase in  state funding for student aid
    • Uses  more than $25M of federal stimulus money to bring overall increase to 5% for student aid

Other Facts about the Governor’s Recommended FY10-11 Budget:

• Most executive branch agency budgets reduced by 10% or more
  • 2% reductions in addition to 8% reductions made in the Governor’s January budget proposal
• No pay raises for state employees in CY2009
• Medicaid
  • Maintain services for all eligible recipients
  • Fully fund the April Medicaid forecast
• Job creation and Economic Development :
  • Separate from the budget, Major Moves provides over $1B in road funding over the biennium which will provide jobs for 1000s of hardworking Hoosiers
  • More than $450M for higher education capital projects
    • 1000s of construction jobs created across the state
    • Examples:  Ivy Tech Warsaw, Anderson, Bloomington and Elkhart ($54M), Labs at IU, Purdue, IUPUI, and Indiana State University ($50M), and central campus renovations at Ball State University ($33M)
    • Includes more than $200M for repair and rehabilitation projects
    • Universities required to obligate funds for projects within 120 days; putting people to work quickly
    • Funds projects with cash rather than borrowing
  • Other 1-time projects include: Little Calumet  flood control($14M), Notre Dame-Purdue Nanotech Program ($10M), National Guard Youth Challenge Academy ($2M), Indiana Veterans Home renovations ($3M) and Muscatatuck Infrastructure($2M)
• Public Safety
  • Maintains State Police trooper staffing levels and corrections capacity
• Protecting Children
  • Maintains level of caseworkers and services for abused and neglected children
  • Establishes Ombudsman for the Department of Child Services

K-12 Education

Highlights

• School corporations will receive an average increase of 2%
• Every school corporation will receive more per student as compared to current budget
• Creates “Education Trigger,” an automatic additional funding mechanism for K-12 education if actual revenues exceed forecast.  For every two dollars actual revenues exceed forecast, one will automatically go to education
• Maintains the existing level and authority of school corporations to utilize capital project fund to assist with utility and insurance costs
• Utilizes current funding formula approved by the General Assembly and modified to address changes in student population and ensure fairness in the distribution of funding for school districts
• Provides for tuition scholarship tax credit
• Provides for the expansion of quality charter schools
• Requires school corporations, active and retired employees, to select the state’s health plan for their health insurance, savings schools over $100M
• Speeds the transition of as many as 30 schools to New Tech facilities.
• Trains 300 new math and science teachers through the expansion of the Woodrow Wilson Fellowship Program

The State of Education Across the Nation

• At least 35 states have proposed or actually cut funding for K-12 education
• Alabama cut K-12 funding by 13%, the biggest cut to education in 48 years
• California cut K-12 education by more than 16%
• New York has proposed cuts of 13% to all school districts
• Utah’s cuts are expected to reduce per pupil funding by 12% by 2010
• Virginia’s Governor proposed cuts of more than 9% for public education

• Arizona has enacted mid-year cuts in core K-12 funding of $96 per pupil.
• Florida has cut aid to local school districts for the current year by $140 per pupil.
• South Carolina has cut per-pupil funding by $95 in the current year.
• State education grants to school districts have also been cut in Alabama, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky , Maine, Mississippi, Ohio, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Virginia.

Facts regarding Indiana K-12 education

• In FY06, Indiana ranked 6^th for state and local revenue for public schools per dollar of personal income
• Since 1995, the expense per K-12 pupil has increased by more than 4% annually
• Indiana has the 7^th highest teacher salaries in the nation when adjusted for cost of living