A collection of news stories from around the state, focusing on the budget cuts and other news of interest to UF faculty, students, staff, and alums.

Monday, October 27, 2008

FEA pushing tax hike to save schools, Capital News Service

By Whitney Ray
October 23, 2008

Florida teachers are asking the state for a temporary one cent sales tax increase to avoid further budget cuts. Lawmakers have cut three billion dollars from public education since 2006 to keep up with declining tax revenues. Florida Education Association Spokesman Mark Pudlow said schools can’t take much more.

“We’ve seen some changes. There’s fewer crossing guards, fewer school resource officers, there’s some classes that have been cut. In some places teachers have been laid off, and other staff have been laid off. It’s really going to accelerate the rest of this year. We face more budget cuts this year and a big budget cut next year. You’re going to see these kinds of thing accelerate tremendously,” said Pudlow.

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