What did the Governor just say?

Today's budget press release from the Governor's office includes highlights that begin with:

Preserving the same amount in the coming year as last year in per pupil spending in classrooms across the state – the basic formula known as SEEK -- and funding for higher education at the same levels as the 2009 budget. “I’ll say it again and again – we cannot move forward if we take significant steps backward in spending in our classrooms,” Gov. Beshear said of his proposal.

I read that as saying the Governor is prepared to cut education funding at least four ways compared to the 2010 budget currently in place.

1. In the two-year budget enacted last year, higher education was scheduled to receive $1,303 million for FY 2009 and $1,324 million for FY 2010. Sticking to FY 2009 will be a $21 million cut.

2. In the same two-year budget, SEEK funding for P-12 education was scheduled to receive $2,958 million for FY 2009 and $2,974 million for FY 2010. There, sticking to FY 2009 total SEEK funding will be a $16 million cut.

3. The total education budget for P-12 education is more than $4 billion dollars. SEEK is close to $3 billion of that, but education also gets funding for preschool, textbooks, school technology, ESS tutoring, teacher professional development, testing, and other needs. The failure to mention those other P-12 dollars is likely to be a signal that some of them are also in danger.

4. Some state money slated for P-12 and postsecondary in the 2010 budget will be replaced with federal fiscal stabilization funds. For the coming year, the source may not matter much. For future years, though, when the stabilization funds are gone, it means there may be a major struggle just to get state funding back up to recent levels.

Sources: Today's press release is here. Here, the CPE budget is in volume 1d and the KDE budget in volume 1b.