Sen. David Baria's blog post "Education is my Priority", written in response to Gov. Barbour's State of the State address, is a good one. In it, Sen. Baria sets Gov. Barbour straight on the education budget:
(Barbour) recited the common, though incorrect, refrain that public education receives about 60% of the general fund budget and if we don’t cut there, we would need to make drastic cuts elsewhere.Later in the post, Baria brings out that Gov. Barbour wants level funding for the Mississippi Department of Corrections, but a fourth straight year of cuts in education funding. If Barbour had his way, education funding would be down $334,922,304.00 since FY2008.
The fact is that the K-12 budget typically receives about 45% of the general fund budget, but the general fund budget is only about 45% of Mississippi’s total annual budget. Thus, if we look purely at percentages, K-12 education only receives about 20% of the total budget.
6 comments:
Barbour said public education gets 60% of the State's budget and it does. Baria says K-12 only gets 45% of the State's budget which is true. Surely after a few years in the Legislature, Sen. Baria realizes that IHL and Community Colleges are also a part of Public Education.
Surely you can see that 45% of 45% equals 20%. Acting like we spend 60% of the State's money on education is disingenuous. Baria called your man Barbour out on it.
RPP - I liked your comment. Why'd you take it down?
I'm trying to be a nicer person.
Thanks, RPP. I was going to halfway (and maybe more) agree with you.
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