The state Board of Education voted Friday to ask Gov. Nathan Deal for $7.1 billion to fund the Georgia Department of Education next year.
That funding request, which the department was required by law to submit this month, falls short of meeting the governor’s requirement that all departments reduce their budgets by 3 percent.
Department staff members recommended the board include $6.6 million in funding to cover technology costs, and that money is the primary reason the proposed budget will be larger than Deal ordered.
Board Chairwoman Barbara Hampton said she would have preferred for staff members to include cuts elsewhere to accommodate the additional technology funding.
“I’m not willing to put an additional $6 million in the budget carte blanche,” she said.
Ultimately, however, Hampton and her board colleagues voted unanimously to send the proposed budget to Deal, who will use it as a guide in formulating his own budget.
The governor will submit that budget to the General Assembly, which will make cuts and additions as it sees fit.
Georgia’s Department of Education initially was budgeted to receive $6.9 billion last year. That figure grew to just over $7 billion as adjustments were made to account for growth in the state’s student population.
The department will revise its proposed budget next month, when it receives updated student population figures.
Department staff warned board members that programs that began with private grants or federal funding will need to be continued with state money once the other sources of funds dry up.
That will be the case with some of the technological advances the department has sought to put in place, said Scott Austensen, the department’s deputy superintendent for finance and business operations.
Using federal and grant funding, the department developed a system to provide teachers with detailed student information and links to professional development and curriculum resources.
Board member Wanda Barrs said the department needs to make sure Deal and state legislators understand why it has asked for what it is seeking.
“At the end of the day, we’ve got to be able to connect what we’re asking for with what teachers are doing in the classroom,” she said.
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