Texas Public Education Watchdog Authority: Dear Chuy Hinojosa, Florence Shapiro and distinguished Education Committee Members
Texas Public Education Watchdog Authority: Dear Chuy Hinojosa, Florence Shapiro and distinguished Education Committee Members
Just give us (Education) the Lottery Proceeds as per original bill of sale. The Lottery was sold to us (the voters of the great State of Texas) as 100% of the proceeds were for Educating our youth.
What percentage of the Lottery proceeds (currently) are dedicated to the education of our youth?
Why is it, the wealth always steals from our children after acting like they were creating, “doing it for th kids” huge reservoirs of Avarice to siphon off.
Perry Craddick & Corporate Welfare in the name of WIA, ED Byrne Grant, and under the guise of helping the poor.
With the Education funding we should demand that the dedication of lottery money to the Education of our Children be adhered to as it was sold to Texas. The Lottery when legislated was for the Education of Texas Students. Finally, the Private Sector is funded under the WIA slush fund for Corporate Welfare Recipients under the Guise of a Welfare Reform or Welfare to Work / JOB generating program to help the poor. The rich are getting richer in the name of helping the poor. And one needs to always remember it is both parties dippin into the creative crony contractualism. Give it a title, write a grant and set up a front office with a computer and a sign; then get some brochures and a few token clients and funnel the Avarice in a shell game like manner and voila a new ranch or a new house maybe an agency hummer or King Ranch Pickup Truck with a magnetic sign. Give a few JOBS to your network affiliates and send the clients to perform community based work and get rich and richer doing it. Ask Mary Cano or Oscar Martinez to explain it in detail. Charmed I'm sure.
TFT LEGISLATIVE HOTLINE--FRIDAY, MAY 25, 2007
>(copyright 2007 Texas Federation of Teachers)
>
>Proposed State Budget Shortchanges Schools and Educators; Keep Up the Fight
>For House TRS Plan; House at a Standstill as Speaker Clings to Power
>
>Proposed Budget Shortchanges Public Schools, Education Employees: TFT
>President Linda Bridges put out a press statement today deploring the
>results of the House-Senate conference committee on the 2008-2009 budget.
>The state budget plan in House Bill 1 still must win the approval of
>majorities in both the House and Senate. As President Bridges' statement
>below explains, HB 1 in its current form does not deserve that approval:
>
>"Education and educators would be shortchanged badly in the budget proposed
>by House-Senate conferees this afternoon. Based on the information
>currently
>available, school funding would remain static, not even getting back to the
>level of state and local funding school districts had in 2002 in real
>terms, after you take inflation into account. The $850-a-year
>cost-of-living pay raise for teachers passed by the House last month would
>shrivel to about $425, according to the legislative budget staff. If paid
>out to all teachers across the board, this would amount to less than $25 a
>month after taxes and deductions--not even enough to cover the cost of
>rising average health-care premiums. And the conferees took pains today to
>say the money would not even have to be paid out across the board to all
>teachers.
>
>"Worst of all is what this budget proposal would do regarding TRS pension
>benefits. The bill would withhold an eminently affordable and exceedingly
>modest pension boost--a 13th check for TRS retirees--unless other
>legislation passes
>to impose new levies on all current school employees. The only way retirees
>would get a 13th check, under this scheme devised by Sen. Robert Duncan,
>would be if active school employees pay a higher contribution rate, taking
>roughly $50 million a year out of their pockets. This plan totally
>contradicts the House legislation passed unanimously on Wednesday that
>would provide a 13th check for retirees fully funded by the state, without
>imposing any new levies on active employees.
>
>"In short, school districts under this budget would regain none of the
>ground they have lost financially, teachers would get at best a measly pay
>raise of less than $25 a month that wouldn't even keep up with inflation,
>and 300,000 school support personnel would suffer an actual pay cut, as a
>result of the higher levies imposed on them for TRS with no compensating
>increase in pay. You have to give the
>conferees credit--it takes a certain ingenuity to come up with a plan this
>bad at a time when the state is sitting on a record-high budget surplus."
>
>Keep Up the Fight for House TRS Plan! At this writing members of the Texas
>House are standing firm in support of their unanimously approved plan for a
>13th check for TRS retirees, funded by an increase in the state
>contribution rate to 6.7 percent, with no new costs imposed on active
>school employees. Several Senate offices reported to us today that they are
>receiving a high volume of calls in support of this House version of SB
>1846--as well they should be. The Senate alternative proposed by Sen.
>Robert Duncan, Republican of Lubbock, is a thinly veiled attempt to shift
>state costs for TRS pensions onto active employees and their school
>districts.
>
>Duncan let slip the real agenda during floor debate on his plan,
>noting that increasing the TRS levy on active employees and requiring a
>contribution from school districts could "free up general revenue for other
>purposes." In other words, this scheme would allow the state to save money
>by shifting costs onto education employees and local taxpayers.
>
>Duncan's staff in response to callers today reportedly was claiming that
>the freshly hatched budget deal (see above) means that there's no money and
>no time left to provide this session for the 6.7-percent state contribution
>rate that the House proposes. But that's not so. The legislature has
>billions of dollars left to allocate right now, and it would take only a
>tiny fraction of that treasure--less than 1 percent of it, in fact--for the
>state to get to the 6.7-percent TRS contribution rate from the 6.58 percent
>already built into the budget. Even if the budget bill passes in its
>current form, the
>House plan for a fully state-paid 13th check with no new costs imposed on
>active employees could also still pass and become law with full force and
>effect, delivering a 13th check in September.
>
>The upshot is that you have an opportunity right now to shape the outcome
>of this TRS benefit fight in the critical remaining days before adjournment
>of the legislative session on Monday. Just send the letter on this issue to
>your state senator from the TFT Web site. If you don't know your state
>senator, you can find out quickly when you go to that Web letter.
>
>Speaker's Grip on Gavel Threatened: The Texas House came to a standstill at
>8 PM this evening, as Speaker of the House Tom Craddick shut off House
>members' microphones and called a three-hour recess to head off a
>rank-and-file revolt
>threatening to oust him from the speaker's chair. The Midland Republican is
>under heavy fire from both fellow Republicans and Democrats for what many
>consider his tyrannical rule of the House. Tonight he gave them new grist
>for their argument, by ruling that there is no appeal to the membership as
>a whole if he blocks the parliamentary procedure needed to oust him. His
>ruling, epitomizing the arbitrary, one-man rule of which Speaker Craddick
>stands accused, apparently has led to the resignation of the House
>parliamentarian in protest this evening. Like everyone else at the capitol,
>we are now waiting to see if the House will actually reconvene tonight.
>Keep an eye out for news of the latest developments in the daily TFT
>hotlines that will be published each of the next three days as the
>legislative session hurtles toward final adjournment.
Senate Committee on Education
Committee Information
| Chair Vice-Chair | Members: |
posted by Jaime Kenedeño at 2:31 AM
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