So $105 million is just chump-change, huh? According to Sen. Hinojosa (D-McAllen), it is. In tough budget times, it appears the senator is more concerned about preserving non-essential government programs than he is about making necessary cuts and protecting teachers.
His comments came in context of Gov. Perry’s proposal to completely cut government programs like the Commission on the Arts and drastically reduce the funding given to the Texas Historical Commisison, whose duties include preserving old county courthouses and historic downtown streets.
The McAllen Monitor reports Sen. Hinojosa called Perry’s plan to free up $105 million from the state’s budget “a short-sighted approach”.
Short-sighted? Have legislators not been constantly bombarded with requests to save teachers’ jobs and to protect the public education system? With local administrators putting teachers’ jobs on the line, shouldn’t the Legislature be looking everywhere to find ways to close the shortfall? If you assume an average teacher salary in Texas is as high as $50,000, that’s 2,100 teachers that could be saved.
Cutting the Arts and Historical Commission is certainly not the only solution to this fiscal problem. But if we treat $105 million as chump-change and refuse to look at every possible cut to non-essential programs, we will continue to do Texas teachers and their students a great injustice.
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Dustin Matocha is the Social Media Coordinator for Empower Texans / Texans for Fiscal Responsibility.
Connect with Dustin on Twitter.
