Manatee County Schools Budget Cuts

Lawmakers should pledge help at Brevard schools meeting today

Among the memorable moments in President Obama´s inaugural address Tuesday was one that attacked the cancer ravaging America´s body politic.

“On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the . . .false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas that for far too long have strangled our politics,” Obama said.

He was talking about Washington, but the same holds true in Tallahassee, where false promises about holding education harmless from spending cuts and worn-out dogmas among the Legislature´s conservative Republican leadership are preventing raising more revenue for schools.

That´s strangling the future of our children and risking the economic future of our state and community.

Space Coast lawmakers should start reversing course today when Brevard County´s legislative delegation meets with the Brevard School Board.

That means listening and pledging to solve the problem, not make it worse by refusing to take responsible steps to stabilize education funding and rescue teachers and students.

The bottom line shows why their attitude is leading to disaster:

The recently completed special session resulted in another $10.06 million cut this month for Brevard schools, with a total $101.4 million now lost since the start of the 2007-08 school year.

The district has already eliminated scores of positions, frozen hiring, scaled back maintenance, cut department budgets and summer school programs and raised fees for activities.

Now more cuts are coming, including eliminating all teacher reserve positions and taking cash from the textbook reserve fund, Superintendent Richard DiPatri told the School Board on Tuesday.

But that´s nothing compared to what´s ahead in the March regular session, when DiPatri says the district could suffer a devastating $60 million to $70 million hit for 2009-10.

Schools could close, teachers could lose their jobs and athletic programs could be canceled, a grim roll call under way in other districts across the state.

State Republican leaders, however, are refusing to budge.

The worst offender is GOP House Speaker Ray Sansom, who is facing an ethics complaint, grand jury investigation and inquiry by Attorney General Bill McCollum into steering $35 million to Northwest Florida State College before he took a $110,000-a-year job there.

Sansom - who no longer has the trust and credibility necessary to hold the post - said Monday he won´t seriously examine loopholes in corporate sales-tax exemptions that could raise an estimated $4 billion to $6 billion, saying some might go, but they won´t “add up to a lot of revenue.”

Instead, he´s floating the same Amendment 5 idea that crashed and burned last year to swap a large sales-tax increase for a property-tax cut.

That dangerous gamble would further destabilize secure funding for schools, leaving them to the mercies of the economy as seen by the plummet in Florida´s sales tax revenues in 2007 and 2008.

Meanwhile, solid ideas to raise revenue, in addition to reviewing sales-tax exemptions, include raising the excise tax on cigarettes, joining an interstate compact to recoup sales taxes from Internet purchases or reinstating the intangibles tax on Florida´s wealthiest citizens, repealed under Gov. Jeb Bush at a cost of billions to the state treasury.

Lawmakers should also study a proposed, temporary one-cent sales tax increase to help schools survive the downturn.

At this point, the precise amount of money that could be raised from these sources is still under study. But everything must be put on the table and a workable formula chosen and passed to save our schools.

The millions of Americans who witnessed Obama´s swearing in Tuesday powerfully show the nation wants, as Obama said, government that works, not government that´s stuck in a failed, dogmatic past.

But stuck in a failed, dogmatic past the Legislature is as the education crisis worsens.

That´s why we encourage as many parents as possible to attend today´s 2 p.m. School Board meeting with lawmakers at the district´s Viera headquarters.

And why parents and concerned citizens should pack a town hall education forum with Brevard lawmakers from 7 to 9 p.m. Feb. 23 at the King Center in Melbourne.

It´s time for action.

Top of Page