Sen. Dean Mortimer, R-Idaho Falls, said, "Because of our budget circumstances, I believe that there's no way we're not going to have cuts to education." He said the cuts to salary-based apportionment in the bill are not cuts to education, because the money still would go to education, though it'd be rerouted to technology. "We want to spend as much as we can on our children," he said. "But that amount is set, and will be set, by the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee." Discussion within that figure about how to spend the money, he said, is appropriate.

He said, "Some people are saying wait on the technology piece." But he said it's less than 1 percent of the overall budget, and asked, "Isn't that important enough that we maintain that 1 percent? ... The technology outdates, it's old. We have to have the money in technology to continue forward."