Comments about ‘Utah Legislature: State budget cuts spare public education’

These cuts are on top of the fiscal year 2010 cuts. The impact isn't just 2.5%.

Not enough. Too bad a more agressive stance was not taken. Education has a lot of pork that can be eliminated, starting with all the administration.

Holding education harmless does not mean there will be no cuts, it just means the same state funding as last year. Without ARRA (stimulus funding) and without funding growth (additional students next year), holding education harmless is in reality only an 8.8% cut in education funding. That does not count the cuts in educator retirement which brings the cuts closer to 10%.

I guess in politics we call that holding education harmless. Everywhere else we call it deception.

This article is misleading. The cuts that education were spared were further cuts for the remainder of this school year. Last year's legislative session cut education was by 16%, which was then backfilled by Obama so it ended up being a 6% cut for the 2010 Fiscal year.
For 2011, the 16% cut is still in effect; A new 4% cut has been added to that in this year's legislative session; and there is no Obama money to back fill those cuts.
Don't fool yourselves: education has been drastically cut by our current legislators.

11,000 more students are coming into the Utah education system this year. The budget was cut a tiny bit. However 11,000 more students is like adding 5 or 6 new high schools and giving them NO money to build or staff the schools.

Hard to call that held harmless.

Interesting that the article and the legislature says only a "0.1%" cut to public ed. With lots of new students coming in unfunded, the reality is about a 4% cut. I wish that would have been reported in the article.

Misleading spin from state leaders. Education has been cut the last year already. The politicos new budget does not provide for all the new students comeing into the system, so that may as well be a cut. At least you could be honest Herbert, is that asking to much?

Education has not been saved. The cuts have been drastic and this article, along with our legislators are trying to do a really good job of deceiving the people of the state.

Interesting the legislature had the SMALLEST cuts of all budget areas, is this proportionate?

Who's the spin doctor?

Education is the key to economics prosperity. Cutting that is the LAST thing you EVER want to do; especially with our young population.

Only UEA talking points would consider a smaller appropriation than they asked for (but still larger than previous years) a "budget cut."

"UEA Talking Points|9:26 a.m. Feb. 10, 2010
Only UEA talking points would consider a smaller appropriation than they asked for (but still larger than previous years) a "budget cut." "

Clueless, 100% clueless

Let me guess, you vote conservative.

You're all wrong. Most of you are talking about the budget in FY 11 which hasn't even been addressed yet. This article is talking about FY 10 where public education has been held harmless. The State Board of Education has been cut but schools have not.

The Legislature took a proportional cut. Unlike other States and Congress they have continually cut their budgets and pay. They have walked the walk.

Its one thing to stick to your ideology and say "we won't raise taxes," its another to say at the same time that "we aren't cutting funding for education" when in fact you have made drastic cuts in education. In addition there are more students in the system than there were last year. You're economic model has created the worst funded school system in the country even in good times and you've just given it another blow to the head. Be honest Governor Herbert! Isn't honesty part of Republican ideology as well?

You are the one mistaken. Look at the budget for 2010 and you will see there was a massive cut from 2009. This new .01% cut is an additional cut from the one made during last year's legislative session.
Education will continue to get cut as long as we have short-sighted legislators.

I am not an administrator, but even I don't understand how people are so quick to throw them under the bus. Why is cutting administration salaries always one of the first items to come up. How is that a solution. Especially in education when we know that lower teacher salaries = Lower teacher quality. Why are we so willing to then tempt at losing good administrators. Yes the get paid more, and yes, guess what, they do more. I have always said that if you pay teachers more, you will naturally get better quality teaching. Same thing goes for the administration as well.

Obviously you are an administrator or spouse of one. You're most likely a school administrator because you could not hack it in the classroom or did not want to stay there. Every school could cut at least one administrator and most of the counselors. Administators go that route because they want more money, but they do not do more. You babysit the troubled kids and go to the activities. If administrators actually did their job, then teachers would get evaluated properly. Then, we could cut the dead-beat teachers back by the UEA. This would be better for everyone.

I'm sorry you have had such a bad experience with administrators. Clearly you have issues you feel you should generalize to an entire population. Maybe you should start an AM radio talk show.

I agree with slgs5. You better check your administrator's salary on "utahsright.com" befor you start fooling yourself into thinking they are underpaid. Some of these guys are knocking on the 6 figure mark for less than a year of work. Side note; check the site, you will be suprised at how much money your childs teacher is making. Remember we are talking about 9 months of work. The only ones being hosed are the teachers with less than 5 years experience and no masters degree. The rest are well paid.