Legislative leaders and Gov. Gary Herbert have reached a compromise on some of the last lingering budget issues, agreeing Tuesday afternoon to a trim of public education that both sides are willing to accept given the difficult economic times.
"It's done," said House Majority Leader Kevin Garn, R-Layton. "We feel great. Public education essentially is being held harmless. It's being taken out of areas that don't impact the classroom."
In the end, public education would see a reduction of about $10 million, after legislators agreed to use payments from a lawsuit settlement with Big Tobacco companies to avoid reducing cuts to school busing plans. Rural lawmakers feared it would prove especially damaging to students in their districts.
It amounts to a reduction of less than 1 percent from the overall public education fund. However, there is no new funding to educate an estimated 11,000 new students who are expected to be enrolling in Utah's public schools in the fall. The state already has the lowest per-pupil spending in the nation.
But the State Board of Education had told lawmakers they could make ends meet without funding for the new students.
State Superintendent Larry Shumway said Tuesday he's pleased lawmakers have worked so hard not to hurt public education. "I have to give absolute, total credit to them for having public education as a top priority," Shumway said. "There's no question they've lived up to that."
The public education issues were the last remaining budget issues to be addressed as lawmakers and the governor plugged a hole of more than $700 million they were facing as they entered the session.
"There shouldn't be a doubt in anyone's mind that public education is the top priority and it's absolutely seen in the whole way this budget was put together," said John Nixon, the governor's budget director.
The governor was able to preserve most of his budget priorities entering the session, save for likely having to swallow a $1 per pack cigarette tax increase. Herbert had said he opposed all tax increases this session, but the Legislature has built the $44 million in revenues into the budget. A veto would knock the budget out of balance and force a special session.
Herbert had fought hard to avoid a proposed $21 million in cuts to public education, even proposing the use of $12.8 million the federal government had repaid the state for building a veterans nursing home in Ogden to help avert cuts. That proposal was not well-received by House members.
Ultimately, the cut to education would mean $8 million less for new school buildings, no state money for new library books next year, the elimination of a science and math program for educators and a number of smaller cuts to programs such as school nursing, concurrent enrollment and the state's electronic high school.
School districts would have to decide how to handle some of the other cuts.
The governor and legislative leaders were looking to cut a total of $21 million from education, but ultimately decided to put $5 million back into education to help pay for teacher supplies, which is half of what teachers have gotten in past years.
They also decided to take $6.3 million in tobacco trust fund money and put that into school busing. Had lawmakers cut that $6.3 million from busing, thousands of junior high and high school students - those living less than three miles from school - would likely have lost busing.
The budget recommendations also spare several other programs.
The Beverley Taylor Sorenson Arts Learning Program, which is in more than 50 elementary schools, would get funding for its third year.
One major change in the education budget is that, rather than putting a Band-Aid on education funding by patching over budget cuts with money that disappears at the end of every year, lawmakers and the governor agreed to permanently fund the school programs. That means school districts wouldn't have to face the annual threat of having their budgets cut each session.
Nixon said that's a significant improvement that "stabilizes the education funding for not only this year, but into the future."
