Official warns educators that budget cuts are coming

In response to a mounting budget shortfall, legislators plan to offer greater flexibility to Georgia school districts struggling with more state mandates and less state funding.

Unfortunately, the General Assembly’s version of flexibility is similar to taking children to a wondrous toy store, pointing out all the tempting games and dolls and then handing them a dollar apiece to buy whatever they want.

“We have learned that flexibility is a Latin word that means, ‘we aren’t going to send you any money,’ ” said Herb Garrett, executive director of the Georgia School Superintendents Association. Garrett was among seven education leaders and policymakers who participated in a sobering panel last week sponsored by the Georgia Partnership for Excellence in Education. The mood was glum, the predictions gloomy. The consensus was that Georgia schools may have to scale back on their ambitions of higher performance and accept the status quo for now.

“It is dire,” said Sally FitzGerald, of the League of Women Voters of Georgia. “Dire. I don’t see any upswing in education budgets until 2012.”

In the past, the state granted flexibility to schools under the premise that fewer regulations would unleash innovation and jump-start student achievement, said Stuart Bennett, who, until recently, was the state’s Chief Deputy Superintendent of Schools. In September, Bennett became executive director of the Georgia Association of Educational Leaders.

“But with the budget cuts, people are looking to flexibility to maintain what they have now,” he said. “I want to go back to talking about improving schools, but we aren’t going to be able to talk about making improvements for two to three years.”

Because of the stalled economy and drastic cuts to programs, panelists agreed that Georgia schools will be lucky to maintain current levels of student performance. Some schools will lose ground, they cautioned, if their systems can’t make up the dramatic drop in state funding with local revenues.

The poor economy has halted consumer spending in Georgia and battered sales and income tax collections, forcing the state to slash $1.6 billion to $1.8 billion from its budget, including cuts to schools.

The problem, said Garrett, is that 85 percent of school costs are tied up in teacher salaries and benefits, so any significant cuts must eventually reach the classroom. If staffing is decreased, class size has to increase, he said.

In an illustration that shocked her fellow panelists, Heather Miner of the Georgia Association of Educators told of a high school Spanish teacher who has 31 students now in her class but has been told to expect 40 next semester.

With the budget crisis, panelists expected class sizes to grow and new initiatives such as expanding pre-school to 3-year-olds to stall. In addition to the stark reduction in state funding, panelists warned that public schools could lose even more money if the General Assembly endorses vouchers next session.

Several panelists criticized the plan of state Sen. Eric Johnson (R-Savannah) to introduce a voucher bill in the General Assembly that would give tax dollars to all parents to pay for all or part of their children’s private school tuition. But state Rep. Fran Millar (R-Dunwoody), speaking from the audience, expressed doubts that the General Assembly would embrace a voucher bill amid such economic turmoil.

Vice chairman of the House Education Committee, Millar urged the educators in attendance to compile their own list of targeted budget cuts to forestall wholesale whacks by lawmakers. “Come up with what you think the cuts should be,” he said, “because the cuts are coming.”

mdowney@ajc.com