“I am proposing a dramatic increase of $132.5 million for K-12 public education, including $90 million in additional funds for school construction and repairs and maintenance. This money is on top of the $570 million already appropriated, but not yet spent by the Department of Education.”
What she didn’t say:
This is a very common political tactic—raise the spectre of a do-nothing government bureaucracy (in this case, the state Department of Education) just sitting around all day, doing nothing with more than half a billion dollars in appropriated funds, then ask the Legislature to drop nearly $100 million more on top of those funds the DOE supposedly isn’t spending. So what that the department insists that it’s spent or is in the process of spending all the money allocated to it—the tactic works because Lingle gets to be both generous benefactor and stern disciplinarian. And they say State of the State addresses have nothing to do with politics… -Anthony Pignataro
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