A key subcommittee meeting on the afternoon of this twenty-second day of the 2009 session of the Georgia General Assembly gave the first sign to educators that legislators hope to use some of the federal stimulus dollars to ease the pain of austerity cuts to local school systems, cuts that just seem to grow and grow and grow.  Representative Ed Lindsey (R-Atlanta) convened a meeting of his K-12 Education Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee to review and vote on their recommendations for changes to the Governor's plan for the FY2009 Amended Budget (said recommendations certain to be approved by the full House Appropriations Committee as well as the full House of Representatives).  Most of the subcommittee's recommended changes were relatively minor (e.g., a few additional cuts to agriculture education, restoration of some recommended cuts to charter schools, some additional cuts in the area of curriculum development, even a restoration of some operations money to RESA's, etc.).  The "biggie" in their recommendations was the use of some not-yet-available federal stimulus money to restore $145 million in austerity cuts that had been made to local school systems.  The language attached to their recommendation is interesting (and, tells the story of the money not yet being available) and reads as follows:  "Provide $145,317,456 in federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act fiscal stabilization funds based on Georgia's compliance with maintaining FY2006 funding levels and other required assurances and pending the approval of the Governor's application for funding."  Translation:  "We don't have this money in Atlanta yet, and we won't get it unless Governor Perdue applies for it and signs the necessary assurances as to its use."  The political saga continues.

Interestingly, this subcommittee vote came only one day after DOE had released tentative FY2009 mid-term allotment sheets, said allotment sheets showing a huge increase in austerity cuts to local systems based on the Governor's latest downward revision of the revenue estimate and subsequent cuts to those local systems of an additional $98 million.  On those sheets, the "new" austerity cuts displayed for systems were approximately four times the austerity number that had appeared on the initial allotment sheets upon which initial FY2009 budgets had been based.  If this $145 million in federal money does, in fact, arrive, and is allowed to be inserted into the budget per the subcommittee's recommendation, then the "new, new" austerity cuts would only be 2.5 times the aforementioned initial austerity cut.  [Editor's note:  Whoever thought that we would reluctantly accept cuts of any type, but be willing to celebrate a reduction in the amounts cut???]  Readers, though, should be cautioned that this budget recommendation is only the first in what will be a long series of them, and things can continue to change as time goes on.  The full House of Representatives is expected to vote on this budget on Thursday of this week, after which it will go the Senate for their consideration.  The work on the FY2010 budget remains to be done.

In other action today, the House of Representative had a lengthy and contentious debate on HB 100, Representative Earl Ehrhart's (R-Powder Springs) bill seeking to allow families and companies to donate up to 75% of their taxable responsibilities (in the form of a state tax credit, not a deduction) to non-profit organizations that provide "scholarships" (i.e., vouchers) to students to attend private schools.  Opponents of this bill referred to the legislation as providing "neo-vouchers" and "back door vouchers" and noted that no mechanism existed to track and evaluate the taxpayers'  dollars spent.  Also noted was that the $50 million "cap" on donations to these "scholarships" knocks a $50 million hole in the state budget at the same time that local school systems are getting hammered fiscally.  In the end, though, the bill passed by a vote of 98-69 and now goes to the Senate.

The Academic Support Subcommittee of the House Education Committee held a lengthy meeting on this afternoon, originally planning to address four bills, but finally dealing with only three.  HB 278 is a Governor's bill intended to relax expenditure controls on local systems during this budget nightmare that continues to play out and, after some discussion and limited testimony, received a "do pass" recommendation and will move to the full House Education Committee.  The progress on two other bills was not quite so smooth:

• HB 336, sponsored by Rep. Ron Stephens (R-Garden City) and calling for a much more flexible testing window for the administration of state tests, was tabled until the next meeting of the subcommittee in anticipation of more information being made available by the Department of Education.
• HB 243 was a Governor's bill seeking the repeal of the statute calling for supplemental pay for teachers who had earned certification by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards.  Representative Brooks Coleman (R-Duluth), chairman of the House Education Committee, proposed a substitute bill that, according to his explanation, sought to "grandfather" in the supplement for all teachers currently holding the certification (pending funding by the General Assembly) but denying the money to future certificate-earners.  If the subcommittee had wanted an interested, involved audience to observe their work, they could not have picked a better day, as this day was "PAGE Day on the Hill."  Teacher after teacher addressed the committee, and their voice was one:  keep the supplements.  In the end, the drafting of the bill created some confusion, and the bill was tabled for more work and will be dealt with at the next meeting of the subcommittee.

The Senate took up no education legislation on this day, but Wednesday promises to change all that.  SB 84, the infamous "school board excellence" bill, will hit the floor of the Senate on that day.  And, the Senate Education and Youth Committee has additional meetings scheduled to hear more testimony on Senator Eric Johnson's (R-Savannah) latest voucher legislation.  Subcommittees of the House Education Committee will also meet to tackle House bills.  The pace of activity has picked up!