> Claire Stokes notes: > > And, maybe I'm slow, but I still just can't figure out the thinking behind it: especially given the surplus. I'd love to hear the > reasoning for it, from Ventura or Jax or Shrunk or whoever it is who decided it would best fill the state's mandate of > educating our children. ... [TB] Obviously Ventura doesn't want to be "The Education Governor". The increases certainly seem a little thin. I do have a question about the 25% budget hits that John Ferman told us about. I'm not sure that I understand why when the money coming in is essentially the same, maybe up a fraction of a percent, but essentially level we are looking at 25% budget hits. I find 25% difficult to believe. It appears that some areas are considered sacred and more money will be spent in those areas than was this year. Some comes from increased unfunded mandates, but many of those mandates have been there in the past so it should be just the increase that is impacting the other budget areas. While I don't expect the legislature to be as stingy as the Governor, we probably won't know the result until mid-May. Since the School Board doesn't get to decide how much money is available to spend (it gets what the state and federal government allow, plus the local option with a few dollars in misc fees etc. thrown in) it needs to make its budget decisions based on what it knows it will get and then add back any additional state money that comes along. The school board needs to decide if some of the areas considered sacred really are. It may well be that we are better off to take some out of those areas to avoid some of the severe cuts that we are being told will be needed elsewhere. Remember that in Minnesota school funding decisions are made by the legislature. They are the ones that need to receive this message. Terrell Brown Loring Park [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Maybe the thin air here in Denver is getting to me, this just blows me away) __________________________________________________ Get personalized email addresses from Yahoo! Mail - only $35 a year! http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/ _______________________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - Minnesota E-Democracy Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
