15% Budget Cuts?!

By -
Hey y'all!
Utah's state legislature wants to make a 15% budget cut and one thing they are discussing is renegotiating teachers' salaries. Governor Huntsman is pushing for 7%, but unfortunately some of the legislators are not as generous as him. If you believe in Utah's children, please email/call your legislator and express your feelings and solutions. The legislative session begins Monday. Thanks!

Comments

Lisa B. said…
I just wrote to my Representative and Senator. Here's what I said, in case anyone wants to borrow some of it:

Thank you first of all for the work you do as my representative. I know that many times it is thankless work, and you have many difficult decisions to make. I am writing as a voter from your district to express my hope that you will do everything in your power to limit the budget cuts you make to both public and higher education.

I raised six children in this state and nearly all the teachers my children had in elementary, middle, and high school were good or excellent teachers--hard-working, competent, doing a challenging job with the best interests of the kids at heart. I believe that Utah's education system is a hard-working system, doing the best it can with never quite enough resources, due to our state's unique demographics. I know that there is always some small amount of "fat" in most budgets, but I truly believe that our education system has very little fat, and to cut as much as 15%--or even 19%, as I have heard--will cut into the very heart of what our schools do.

I am a professor at Salt Lake Community College, and I know there that cuts at that level will do harm to our programs and our ability to truly serve students. It will be many, many years before we would be able to make up what we will lose if we are forced to cut at that level.

I recognize that times are very hard and there's no avoiding some paring of the budget. I plead with you to make the amount of the cuts to public education and higher education as limited as is possible. We truly do not have 15%--or more--to lose.

Sincerely yours, and again with my thanks,
January 22, 2009 at 4:29 PM
Sarah or someone like her said…
Yikes! How bout let's cut 15% from their salaries instead? ;)

Thanks for the heads up and thanks Lisa for sharing your letter!
January 23, 2009 at 8:22 AM
Sarah or someone like her said…
PS - I wrote my Representative and Senator as well and I am copying your post onto my blog. If that's okay.
January 23, 2009 at 9:41 AM
ABick said…
that is absolute crap!
that doesn't make any sense at all!
i do plan on writing the weasels...
January 23, 2009 at 11:43 AM
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