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Pulling back the curtains on wage-theft enforcement in MN; Trump's latest attack is on RFK, Jr; NM LGBTQ+ equality group endorses 2024 'Rock Star' candidates; Michigan's youth justice reforms: Expanded diversion, no fees.

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Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg says rebuilding Baltimore's Key Bridge will be challenging and expensive. An Alabama Democrat flips a state legislature seat and former Connecticut senator Joe Lieberman dies at 82.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

100 Days Late - CA Budget Includes Cuts to Education

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Monday, October 11, 2010   

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - California finally has a state budget, but the new spending plan comes at a cost for education. The budget includes $4.3 billion in cuts to public education and suspends Proposition 98, which voters passed to guarantee funding for K-12 and community colleges. These cuts are on top of $17 billion in previous cuts in the past two years.

Marty Hittelman, president of the California Federation of Teachers, says that, instead of raising new revenues, the state budget includes tax breaks for some of the largest corporations and oil companies.

"So while the budget is suffering and California doesn't have the funding to run the programs we need, including education, they're continuing to give tax breaks to the very richest corporations in California. It's just outrageous."

In the past two years, more than 30,000 educators have been laid off and 10,000 school support staff have lost their jobs. Hittelman says students are suffering because they have less adult supervision and fewer resources to help them learn.

"Class size is going up, there's very few librarians, very few counselors, and almost no nurses left at the schools. It's just at the time that we need to train a whole new group of people in California to do the jobs of the future, which take more and more higher education. So it's almost like we're sabotaging our own future."

The California Federation of Teachers supports Proposition 25, which would allow the Legislature to pass a budget with a simple majority instead of the current two-thirds majority. Any new or higher taxes would still require a two-thirds vote, but opponents of Prop. 25 worry that the measure would allow legislators to raise revenues in the form of fees. The measure would also dock lawmakers' pay when a budget is late. The budget signed by Governor Schwarzenegger on Friday was a record-breaking 100 days late.


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