Published: March 27, 2008 03:35 pm            

Education spending a key difference for House, Senate

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.

Senate budget chairman Charlie Borders, R-Grayson, said education is one of the Senate’s priorities – but so is avoiding increases in taxes. The House uses a 25-cent increase in the cigarette tax and application of the sales tax to some luxury services to help pay for the additional money its budget spends.

In higher education, the House would restore base support for individual institutions to the current level – which includes a 3 percent cut from the original budgeted amount for this year, applied after Gov. Steve Beshear took office and began dealing with declining revenue forecasts. But his original budget would have cut the universities another 12 percent, totaling a 15 percent cut from the original amount budgeted for 2007-08.

Western Kentucky University President Gary Ransdell said the universities couldn’t absorb that level of reduction without layoffs and affecting services and tuition. He said Wednesday that the amount proposed by the Senate was preferable to the 12 percent reduction Beshear called for but still hurtful to higher education.

Here’s a look at the differences between the two budgets by institution. The amounts reflect what each chamber would spend over what Beshear recommended in each year of the two-year budget:

Eastern Kentucky University: House – $9.3 million; Senate – $6.98 million;

Kentucky State University: House – $3.218 million; Senate – $2.414 million;

Morehead State University: House – $5.634 million; Senate – $4.225 million;

Murray State University: House – $6.549 million; Senate – $4.912 million;

Northern Kentucky University: House – $6.471 million; Senate – $4.853 million;

University of Kentucky: House – $39 million; Senate – $29.273 million;

University of Louisville: House – $19.75 million; Senate – $14.81 million;

Western Kentucky University: House – $9.97 million; Senate – $7.48 million and;

Kentucky Community and Technical College System: House–- $27.76 million; Senate – $20.07 million.

Both budgets restore some of the capital projects at universities which were vetoed two years ago by then Gov. Ernie Fletcher – but there are differences. The House provides some bond funds for some of those projects while the Senate authorizes the universities to construct those projects with their own funds, either from fees they generate and can dedicate to debt service or from existing restricted funds.

Education isn’t the only area in which the two budgets diverge. The House would pay debt service on $18 million in bonds to replace the Glasgow State Nursing Facility which the Senate removed from its version of the budget. It did the same with $39.8 million in bonds to expand the Little Sandy Medium Security Correctional Complex.

Ronnie Ellis writes for CNHI News Service and is based in Frankfort. Reach him at rellis@cnhi.com.

        

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