Today is the deadline for passing a budget. News reports indicate that legislators might have a deal that could pass. It’s “Republican flavored” and resembles the Senate version more than the House version. The budget will almost certainly pass the Senate, but it is reportedly questionable in the House. Whether the uncertainty is real or mostly posturing on the part of Speaker Bauer is hard to tell. In any case, it looks like Minority Leader Bosma will have to deliver some votes instead of the House Republicans’ customary bellyaching.
Mainly the individual representatives need to check the final numbers to see how their particular school districts are affected. The budget will probably need bipartisan support in the House, primarily because no one wants to be holding the political bag on this decision.
I am saddened by what I read in The Star this morning. The Dems blinked. I continue to see the apathy Hoosiers have for public schools as we move towards publicly funded private schools and privately run public schools.
I wouldn’t be so quick to say the Dems blinked. If you dig into the numbers, I suspect you’ll find they did a lot better than they would have under the original proposals from Daniels and the Senate. The structural stuff — one year budgets and complete obstruction for charter schools were probably used as bargaining chips to drive up the underlying dollars flowing to Democratic constituencies.
Remember, even the Senate version basically repudiated Daniels’ funding formula for public schools – so using that as a starting point means that our neediest public schools will be vastly better off than under the Daniels plan.