Saturday, August 14, 2010

School funding coming to CT

As I mentioned a week ago, Obama / Pelosi / Ried moved on additional money for teachers for this year's budget. And yesterday I got word that the money is moving to Governor Rell.

I understand she has a choice to make for distribution of the funds. She can use one of two formulae:

1) ECS -- Education Cost Sharing; or
2) Title I


While Cheshire receives about $8,000,000 / year in ECS funding and $150,000 / year in Title I money, the more relevant question is the percentage of money received by Cheshire from either of those two funds.

Furthermore, I understand the total funding directed to Connecticut will be $110 million... out of $26 billion bill. If you assume CTs population is approximately 1% of the nation's population (3.6 million out of 300 million), then CT would get a proportionate share of $260 million... not $110 million. So yet again, this funding doesn't make much sense... even if you accept the notion that Nancy Pelosi did not increase the national debt with this increased spending, as she reduced spending elsewhere... including cutting food stamps.

Not sure how this will progress. But I'm going to Haiti to volunteer* for a few days starting on August 29 and I'm not skipping that for a vote because Speaker Pelosi can't get her act together. I'm also not sure how the Superintendent will address this, if the funding even gets to him in the near future. How exactly is he going to get teachers ready to teach in the next two weeks? Speaker Pelosi looks ridiculous.

Tim White

* If you have a few extra dollars, you can donate to the Haitian Health Foundation here.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Perhaps this quote from an AP article on the stimulus summarizes it best:

"Some critics derided the bill as little more than a shakedown by teachers' unions, which typically provide significant political help to Democrats. The new package, including funds that must be spent to rehire teachers or sustain payrolls, is an enormous gift by Democrats to their public employee union allies."

And no, it's not coincidence that this gift comes only a few months before November elections.

Imgaine if teacher's unions across the nation gave back just a little then the nation wouldn't need to borrow this stimulus money and continue to put the nation in terrible, unpayable debt.

It doesn't matter what your political affiliation may be because this is NOT a good situation to be in. When is enough truly enough for these unions?

Anonymous said...

You mean, Tim, that Chris Muprhy and his CT colleagues got rooked by Nancy Pelosi and sent most of the cash to other, more favored states. Whadda shock!

Anonymous said...

Connecticut has never gotten anywhere close to its money back from the federal government, regardless of the party in power in Washington. There are too many states -- mostly Southern and Western Red states where the wheels on people's houses go round and round - that need federal aid to survive. The next time you hear a GOP congressman from the South decry the federal government, shoot his office an email reminding him that his state exists because of federal subsidies.

Anonymous said...

Better yet, let them all secede like Rick Perry wants Texas to do!

Tim White said...

Vermont, home to the Socialist Democrat Bernie Sanders, has residents who also want to secede.

I believe a primary motivation in VT is that many liberals oppose war. This had many of them opposing Bush and supporting the "anti-war" Democratic candidate, Barack Obama.

Having gotten into office, some VTers have now concluded the only way to end their support of war is to end their association with the USA (via secession).

It's not only red states that are unhappy with the direction of America.

Anonymous said...

The federal government owns most of the land in the Red States. If those states charged "rent" they might collect even more $$$.

Seriously, this is why a constituency that has above average income is masochistic to elect statists to Congress or the legislature. Expanding the government just means the locals get soaked worse.

It's like the failed habardasher my dad told me about on Flatbush Ave. He lost $5 on every suit he sold, but he was going to make it up on volume

Anonymous said...

Interesting interview(s) on the WSJ:

Union Yes, Food Stamps No!

Anonymous said...

Why is it that only 7-8% of the work force is union (probably 90% of local, state and federal employees) but it gets nearly 100% attention of most elected democrats?

This clearly is upfront money for compelling union leadership to get out the vote for Democrats this fall. They can't even hide the obvious its so obvious. This is an obscene waste of Chinese money (Yes its borrowed money)that will make for even deeper trenches to fill next year.

Tim Slocum

Anonymous said...

Tim S, one of the fundamental problems with this stimulus is that it diverts attention away from solving for root cause. Yes, perhaps union contracts is a major factor but consider that Hartford is also failing to solve our funding problems. Then again, how can we expect Hartford, who borrows money to prop up the operating budget ($3B shortfall was the last number I heard from Hartford), to take this matter seriously? It's much, much easier to take a hand out vs. solving our revenue, budget, education-cost woes.

What's even sadder...to me anyway, is that Hartford wants to use this money to cover it's own gap in funding ECS. So, what happens when the federal stimulus runs out next year? How is Hartford going to make up ~26% shortfall in funding it's obligation to ECS next year?

More than likely...they're hoping for another handout in 2011 to help cover that ~$3M CRA compliance audit they hit us with. Insanity.