Update on the Education Budget, by Brianna Lewis

The predicted budget for education at the beginning of the 2011 legislative session was at a 7% cut from last year. The 7% cuts included 91 million dollars of unallocated money, which is money in the education budget that is not assigned anywhere specific yet. So, there is 91 million dollars floating around in the education budget, waiting to be used to fund all day kindergarten or new biology labs at the University of Utah.

Near the end of February, 38 million more dollars were added to the budget. This means, only 4%, or 53 million, of the education budget would be cut down from what it was last year. The proposed budget is 96% of last year's (vs. the 93% with 7% cuts that was initially proposed) and, although the budget won't break even, it will provide leeway for projects and programs to keep running.

An example of one of these programs is full-day kindergarten. If there were 7% cuts this project would be cut down to the standard half-day of kindergarten. Children in full day kindergarten are shown to excel more in the public education system. All day kindergarten also helps students who might otherwise be affected by the achievement gap. As it is predicted now, with the extra 38 million dollars, there will be enough money in the budget for the full-day kindergarten to continue.

With budget cuts also comes higher entrance fees, fewer teachers, larger classes, and less supplies. Without these things schools will have to make do with less, decreasing the quality of education. However, with only 4% cuts the budget will be larger than planned for, allowing important supplies to be added back. There are also programs aside from the full-day kindergarten that could be added in with this new budget.

Another problem that has come up in education policy is mission based funding. Mission based funding is a problem because it would only allow state-funding for the mission of a school. This is like saying, the University of Utah would only be given state money for research because their mission is focused on research. Mission-based funding could become a problem for universities, because it would limit the amount of funding they receive even though they have so many other subject areas, which is what makes the school so attractive.