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Posted on November 26 at 6:45 p.m. (Suggest removal)
The Alabama Legislature - Mr. Hammett included - has not done any Alabama teacher or student any favors - AT ALL. The legislature - in special session, as you will recall - passed a budget at the midnight hour, a waste of taxpayer dollars in and of itself. Secondly, the budget that they DID pass was over zealous; each legislator new darn well that the revenue would never be seen for the dollars they put on paper. Hey - but they passed a budget! Wow - they just didn't have an ounce of realism in their blood when the did.
The fight between K-12 and post secondary during the legislation sessions was a waste of money - both were fighting over money that did not exist! Now the Governor has joined the chaos and refuses to declare proration - across the board budget cuts. As a result, local school systems are in a tizzy, having to borrow money to make payroll. Non-teaching positions - like cafeteria workers and teacher aids - are being cut, and come Spring, expect TEACHER layouts, the likes no one has EVER seen.
And where is this "trust fund" that the recent passage of Amendment One allows?
Why won't the governor go ahead and declare proration so that local school systems stop having the guess what to plan for ...
Defacto proration - midnight hour memos from the state's education head Joe Morton - promise that the rest of the check (from which districts make payroll) is in the mail.
Nobody is able to predict the future. But if the legislature had been more realistic - even maybe pessimistic with the numbers, school systems wouldn't be faced with AS dire of circumstances because districts could have planned more realistically.
AND can you believe the Governor continues to talk about adding MORE programs in K-12? The State cannot even fund the ones it has already mandated. AEA czar Paul Hubbard is even talking about TEACHER RAISES next year - an election year.
The animals are running the farm - again - in Montgomery. When will we wake up and demand accountability, and more importantly, true leadership?
On Hammett: State’s economy stronger than most