Smaller Education Programs Make Pitches Vocational Education, Agricultural Research And Deaf, Blind School Officials Say Money Proposed In Gov. Batt’s Budget Isn’t Enough

Managers of the education programs that often take a budgetary back seat to public schools and colleges made their pitch Monday for more money than Gov. Phil Batt has proposed.

“I think the governor was looking for money wherever he could find it,” Michael Rush, acting director of the Division of Vocational-Technical Education, told the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee.

Batt may have declined to include some requested items in his spending blueprint, Rush said, but “I don’t think this reflects a lack of support.”

Agricultural research and the state School for the Deaf and Blind found themselves in much the same situation.

While Batt proposed an increase in general tax support of over 7 percent for all three, the bulk in each case was for the state employee pay raise that makes up for workers receiving no permanent hike in the current budget. Only modest spending increases were recommended in other areas.

In vocational education, which a number of policy makers see as critical to maintaining the trained work force needed to keep Idaho’s economy expanding, Batt recommended the smallest amount of cash in three years to cover rising demand for programs during high school and afterward.

And while the governor accommodated building maintenance needs in agricultural resources, his conservative budget plan foresees nothing for equipment or technology needed to keep pace with that evolving sector. Neither does it do anything to restore some of the severe personnel reductions suffered in the mid-1990s because of budget holdbacks.

Among the three dozen jobs eliminated during that crunch was a weed researcher. Budget writers asked University of Idaho Agriculture Dean David Lineback why that job has not been restored in light of the problem weeds are causing farmers and ranchers statewide.

But Lineback said there was an even greater need for potato and soils experts, putting the weed scientist back into the budget proposals that will be considered either next year or the year after.

“We will fill the position,” he assured the committee.

“It will just take some time to do it.”

State School for the Deaf and Blind Administrator Ron Darcy pointed out that while his institution provides the same service as any other public school district - except for disadvantaged students - it was the only public school in the state to suffer the consequences of the mid-1990s holdbacks.

Lawmakers went out of their way to restore the money the 112 traditional school districts would have lost because of short tax collections.

Darcy also emphasized that his is the only public school that has no additional financial support from local property taxes. Combined, he said, those things have made it increasingly difficult to maintain the educational quality being provided some 135 students from around the state.

He embraced Batt’s proposed spending plan for the school but asked the committee if it could do more.

In the case of vocational education, at least, Democratic Rep. Ken Robison of Boise expressed hope “that the members of this committee can find some additional money somewhere.”