Last week I noted that Governor Dennis Daugaard appears to be asking us to increase the number of people working for state government at a slightly higher rate than he is restoring funding for education. The Governor's office responded that the real growth rate of state full-time equivalents over the last three years under Governor Daugaard's proposed budget is just 1.5%, not the 4.6% I claimed by comparing current requested FTEs with past actual FTEs. Compared with the 3.8% increase in general fund expenditures on education, 1.5% FTE growth is not so bad, right?
A document circulating among my education friends offers a different comparison, based on per-student funding (whoops! hit the rotate button, bottom-center of screen!):
This document adds the standard per-student allocation provided by the K-12 funding formula and the one-time money directed to K-12 in each budget. In Governor Mike Rounds's final budget, FY2011, the state allocated $4,804.60 per K-12 student. In FY2014, Governor Daugaard wants to spend $4,625.65 per student. That's a decrease of 3.7% in how much he's willing to spend to educate each child compared to Mike Rounds's last valuation of K-12 education.
Here's another comparison: Governor Daugaard is recommending a total per-student increase of 0.8% over last year's budget. Meanwhile, he is recommending a 7.0% increase in FY2014 general fund expenditures on state employee salaries over what he recommended last year. Looking at recommended FTE levels for FY2013 and FY2014, that's a 6.1% increase in per-FTE spending from the general fund.
0.8% more per student; 6.1% per state employee. I welcome readers to identify the unique economic needs that have arisen this year for the people Governor Daugaard hires that have not arisen for teachers and parents trying to educate their kids.
While we have much to offer here for the tourists, we do not have so much regarding jobs. On one hand, ole Denny spends 5 mill that he did not have, to promote South Dakota as a place to do business. On the other hand, dopey Denny makes cuts to our education for our future workforce. The economics of it all does not work out as math apparently is not his strong suit. It does not work out for our students and it does not work out to promote our future workforce for higher paying jobs.
crisis? what crisis? merry freakin' christmas:
http://twitpic.com/blcdgv
In this document the $68.55 that the 2012 Legislature added to the FY12 budget as one-time money was incorrectly included in the FY13 total per student funding. After moving that to the correct year so that total FY is compared to total FY, the proposed FY14 total is a 2.3% increase compared to FY13. Of course that also means that FY13 was actually a .7% decrease from FY12. I don't know that this affects your broader point, but I do think we should be comparing apples to apples.
"None of ALEC’s predictors of economic growth—elimination or reduction of progressive taxation, reduced commitments to public services, tightening of social safety net programs, or reduced union influence—showed any relationship to economic prosperity."
http://www.policyshop.net/home/2012/11/30/alecs-and-arthur-laffers-worthless-recommendations-for-prosp.html
The better quotes were below that one, Larry.
"…states that were rated higher on ALEC’s Economic Outlook Ranking in 2007…have actually been doing worse economically in the years since, while the less a state conformed with ALEC’s policies the better off it was."
"Once again, actual results are the opposite of the ALEC claim. The more a state’s policies mirrored the ALEC low-tax/regressive taxation/limited government agenda, the lower the median family income.."
School to prison pipeline alive and well in South Dakota. Sen. Leahy holding hearings:
http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/news/splc-calls-on-congress-school-districts-to-end-school-to-prison-pipeline
David, I did wonder about that $68.55. Ah, now I see how that worked: this ASBSD summary explains that the 2012 Legislature sent $68.70 per student to the schools before July 1 via HB 1137. The document I give above lists appropriations by session, showing how much the Governor and friends were willing to spend each year. Note that while HB 1137 gave $8.7 million to state aid to education, it gave $12.3 million to the executive branch for state employee raises. Both are worthy expenditures... but again, the Governor sees growing his own patronage pool as more important than funding education.
Even if we move that $68.55 back a year, it doesn't change the three-year and eleven-year comparisons the document makes to spending increases on education versus increases in the rest of state government.