Editorial: Education budget cannot be balanced on children’s backs

These are obviously difficult economic times. People are taking pay cuts. People are losing their pensions. Some are even losing their jobs altogether.

Tough times call for tough measures, even if they are not popular and even if they are measures you wish you didn’t have to take.

State schools Superintendent Joe Morton called for such measures Thursday when he announced a plan that would help Alabama’s struggling education budget save dwindling, precious dollars. Instead of announcing the cutback of specific programs, school supplies or changing classroom structure, he called for the backbone of the state’s educational system – the teachers — to shoulder the load economically.

Morton’s proposal calls for a constitutional amendment that would base appropriations to K-12, postsecondary and four-year universities on the number of students enrolled at each level of education. That didn’t stir feathers. This, however, did:

* Freezing state funding to the Public Education Employees’ Health Insurance Plan at the fiscal year 2010 level and direct the plan’s board to develop a program to match available funds.

* Raising the amount of experience required for future education employees to retire from 25 years to 30 years, thus, reducing the amount of retirement benefits paid to educators no longer working.

* Increasing the amount education employees pay into their retirement plans from 5 percent to 6 percent, which, again saves the state a few bucks.

* Raising the minimum age for future participants in the Deferred Retirement Option Plan, or DROP, to 30 years of service and 57 years of age.

It’s a tough plan, but in today’s economic climate where the workforce across the nation has been burdened with cutbacks, teachers should not be immune despite the meritorious role they play in society. Something’s got to give and state dollars continue to fall short.

Mary Bruce Ogles, assistant secretary for the Alabama Education Association, said, “We’re a little concerned that Dr. Morton would want to balance the budget on the backs of educational employees.”

One thing’s for certain, we do not want to balance the budget on the backs of our children. After all, education in this state is for their benefit, and their future, right?