|
Finally. The
drama is over.
Here’s what we know (or don’t know) at the present time:
1. The Agriculture Incentive Grant is in the tier 2
list for categorical funding, which means we will have a small reduction
in funding in the short term, but no flexibility allowed through the
2012-13 fiscal year. That means the AIG funds must be spent
on Agricultural Education. Period.
Thirty-eight other categorical programs are prone to cuts and 100%
flexibility, including ROP, Adult Education, 9th Grade
Class Size Reduction, Instructional Materials Block Grant, etc.
2. Our AIG "cut" for this year is purportedly $363,000,
but we won’t know the exact amount for a few days.
It is likely that Specialized Grants will not be awarded for
2008-09, which would mean your local AIG funds would not be cut at all,
since that amount of reduction could be absorbed by those Specialized
Grants.
3. If they are including projected allocations to come up
with the "cut", then we may end up more in a flat-line mode
than a definitive percentage reduction to current levels of funding.
In
Sacramento, the word "cut" often really means "less of an increase
than we expected". Stay tuned.
4. If you want to read the bill that impacts Education funding, go
to www.leginfo.ca.gov,
click on bill information and search for SBx3 4. Make sure you
leave a space between the 3 and 4. Happy reading.
5. This has been an interesting political drill. I look
forward to sharing the inside story with all of you at some point.
For now, I'm just happy it's over. There
are lots of people to thank, including members of the Big 5 and
their staff who recognized the importance of our programs.
I will have more on that later as well.
Thanks,
Jim
|
