Board Of Education To Present Proposed Budget

The State Board of Education meets today to present its new budget proposal and Oklahoma Watchdog's Peter J. Rudy offers these thoughts:

In 2007, the Board requested a budget increase of $395-million which would have made the Common Education budget alone nearly $3-billion.

In 2008, as presidential candidates debated about how to fix the economy, the State Board of Education wanted an even larger increase, this time $479-million more.

In 2009, despite the need for federal stimulus funds and talk of a revenue failure that beccame official the following month, the Board of Education still wanted an increase of $226-million.

Last year, even though everyone was talking about a budget shortfall of close to a billion dollars, the State Board of Education requested a budget increase of $381-million.

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