The budget target adopted unanimously by the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee today anticipates nearly $110 million in cuts to Idaho's public school budget next year. That's the $62 million already proposed by state schools Supt. Tom Luna, which included a cut equal to three days pay for all teachers and administrators, plus another $47.4 million to hit schools with the same 5 percent cut in personnel funding that's proposed statewide. Senate Finance Chairman Dean Cameron, R-Rupert, said the plan anticipates taking $17 million not from the public school stabilization fund, as Luna proposed, but from the state's main reserve fund, the budget stabilization fund, to boost the school budget. That's because most of the school fund already would be spent; some must be kept as a reserve against enrollment changes. Cameron said the idea is to make that shift from the main reserve fund "in order that we don't have to take public schools to $130 million (in cuts), because that's what their share would be otherwise."

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