{"id":287,"date":"2006-06-13T17:35:00","date_gmt":"2006-06-13T23:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2006\/06\/governor%e2%80%99s-office-says-school-districts-could-have-avoided-teacher-cuts\/"},"modified":"2006-06-13T17:35:00","modified_gmt":"2006-06-13T23:35:00","slug":"governor%e2%80%99s-office-says-school-districts-could-have-avoided-teacher-cuts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2006\/06\/governor%e2%80%99s-office-says-school-districts-could-have-avoided-teacher-cuts\/","title":{"rendered":"Governor\u2019s office says school districts could have avoided teacher cuts"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/photos1.blogger.com\/blogger\/5892\/2386\/1600\/Richardson,%20Bill.27.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/photos1.blogger.com\/blogger\/5892\/2386\/200\/Richardson%2C%20Bill.23.jpg\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a>I\u2019ve written a couple of times about teacher layoffs in many school districts, and asked why the state didn\u2019t prevent this from happening. Now the governor\u2019s office is saying the fault isn\u2019t with the state, but with the districts that are making cuts.<\/p>\n<p>Last week, the Moriarty school board approved its 2006-2007 budget, which includes the cutting of 17 teacher positions and eight other positions. The Santa Fe Public Schools laid off 37 teachers, and the Gadsden Independent School District cut 27 teacher positions. The Las Cruces Public Schools cut travel vehicle and other funds because of a $7 million shortfall, but avoided teacher cuts.<\/p>\n<p>I wrote previously that contributing factors were rising utility costs and a mandated 5 percent pay increase. But the governor\u2019s office says cuts could have been avoided through better management.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen we consider Moriarty, remember that they\u2019ve had a decline of 900 students over the last several years that went unaddressed,\u201d spokesman Gilbert Gallegos said. \u201cWe must also consider school districts like Santa Fe that have decided to keep small schools open and use non-recurring revenue for recurring expenditures and given raises that exceeded legislative funding mandates.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThose districts that didn\u2019t make adjustments to their budgets are the ones that are having the most difficulty in balancing their budgets,\u201d Gallegos said. \u201cThere are many examples of school districts that have been prudent and have balanced budgets without making sweeping cuts in personnel.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Earlier this year, House Bill 2 included a Republican-sponsored $6.3 million appropriation that would have helped with the mandated salary increases, but Richardson vetoed it. In addition to saying the money was not needed because better planning could have prevented layoffs, Gallegos said small districts have \u201ccome to rely on emergency supplemental funding.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I\u2019ve written a couple of times about teacher layoffs in many school districts, and asked why the state didn\u2019t prevent this from happening. Now the governor\u2019s office is saying the fault isn\u2019t with the state, but with the districts that are making cuts. Last week, the Moriarty school board approved its 2006-2007 budget, which includes [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=287"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}