Fowler, Wardynski oppose pending budget legislation
Madison City Schools Superintendent Dr. Dee Fowler, shown here, and Huntsville City Schools Superintendent Dr. Casey Wardynski are opposing Alabama Senate Bill 30, which would shift approximately $250 million from the Education Trust Fund to the General Fund Budget. (CONTRIBUTED)
MADISON – Madison and Huntsville’s school superintendents released statements on Aug. 6 in opposition to pending legislation that will cut the education budget.
If the Alabama Senate approves Bill 30 (SB30), approximately $250 million will shift from the Education Trust Fund to the General Fund Budget in an attempt to counteract the shortfall in other divisions of state appropriations.
Huntsville Superintendent Casey Wardynski held a news conference on Aug. 6 to denounce the proposed cuts to the education budget. Wardynski said Huntsville schools could lose $18 million without advance notice. Those reductions would result in removal of teachers, consolidation of classrooms and slashes in services, Wardynski said.
Madison City Schools Superintendent Dr. Dee Fowler said taking money from the education budget “to help plug the General Fund will only serve to make problems worse. It would be penny-wise and pound-foolish to use resources needed to prepare 746,000 public schoolchildren for productive futures,” Fowler said.
“Education costs money, but the price is heavier providing an inferior education in terms of quality of life in communities, property values, crime and poverty rates, employment and being attractive for business growth,” Fowler said.
Before returning to Montgomery for the 2016 Alabama Legislative Special Session, legislators from Madison County accepted an invitation to meet with Madison Board of Education on July 31. Board members presented documentation to refute claims about a ‘surplus’ in the education budget and that overall education funding is at its all-time highest level.
“Some have taken this opportunity to falsely argue that we have a surplus in education funding and that this money should be diverted to pay for prisons and other items covered by the General Fund. Pardon me, but I don’t see that logic,” Fowler said in documentation presented to legislators.
“Diverting money from the Education Trust Fund will only ensure that the prison population will grow as education weakens in our state,” Fowler said.
In his statement on Aug. 6, Fowler urged legislators “to not lose sight of the multiplier effect education has on children’s futures and on the economy.”
