email from a neighbor:
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Sal,
I just got off the phone with Lisa Dawn-Fisher, Assistant Director for the revenue fund at the Texas Education Agency.? nice lady.? lots of information.
Of all the money that goes into the general revenue fund, the TEA is the largest recipient:? about one-third of the total dollars collected.? This year, for the second? time in as many budgets, the TEA is not going to be able to make its payments to the schools.? The legislature has only given them 23 months of money to cover a 24 month budget period.? August's $800 million dollar payment to operate Texas schools will not be made.? That means that the schools already need another $800 million just to? make ends meet.? She said that in Oregon they have closed their schools two weeks earlier than normal because of the same kind of budget shortfall.? Texas school performance is already at the bottom of the nation.? What will 2 less weeks? of education mean, anyway, right?? NOT.?
Put another way, for every dollar diverted from that fund, at least 33 cents of it was taken from the schools.? The next largest recipient is the department of Health and Human Services.? But then again, who? gives a s___ whether there is enough money to care for the children, the poor, the old, and the sick anyway?? Get me to the next toll booth as fast as you can.? I say, ''I don't care about pollution, I'm an air-conditioned gypsy.'' (The Who)? NOT
Roads, roads and more roads.? Keep pavin' paradise, TxDOT.? It is your solution to everything.? There is not a s____ in TxDOT who ever saw a road he didn't like.? Now they're buying them up to charge admission.? TxDOT should be called RxDOT.? They create our traffic problems by failing to properly design and maintain the transportation infrastructure in this state, intentionally delay the construction of highway improvements for which funds have been available for years and then tell us that we are in a traffic crisis with only one solution.? ? And what are they pushing?? Toll roads.? Take money today from the very children who will need the education we have robbed them of in order to be able to make the money they need to pay the enormous debt with which we have saddled them.? 40 years from now, when those bonds are retired we will all not be around to see them wrestle with the problem.? More the shame for all of us.
----------------
Sal,
I just got off the phone with Lisa Dawn-Fisher, Assistant Director for the revenue fund at the Texas Education Agency.? nice lady.? lots of information.
Of all the money that goes into the general revenue fund, the TEA is the largest recipient:? about one-third of the total dollars collected.? This year, for the second? time in as many budgets, the TEA is not going to be able to make its payments to the schools.? The legislature has only given them 23 months of money to cover a 24 month budget period.? August's $800 million dollar payment to operate Texas schools will not be made.? That means that the schools already need another $800 million just to? make ends meet.? She said that in Oregon they have closed their schools two weeks earlier than normal because of the same kind of budget shortfall.? Texas school performance is already at the bottom of the nation.? What will 2 less weeks? of education mean, anyway, right?? NOT.?
Put another way, for every dollar diverted from that fund, at least 33 cents of it was taken from the schools.? The next largest recipient is the department of Health and Human Services.? But then again, who? gives a s___ whether there is enough money to care for the children, the poor, the old, and the sick anyway?? Get me to the next toll booth as fast as you can.? I say, ''I don't care about pollution, I'm an air-conditioned gypsy.'' (The Who)? NOT
Roads, roads and more roads.? Keep pavin' paradise, TxDOT.? It is your solution to everything.? There is not a s____ in TxDOT who ever saw a road he didn't like.? Now they're buying them up to charge admission.? TxDOT should be called RxDOT.? They create our traffic problems by failing to properly design and maintain the transportation infrastructure in this state, intentionally delay the construction of highway improvements for which funds have been available for years and then tell us that we are in a traffic crisis with only one solution.? ? And what are they pushing?? Toll roads.? Take money today from the very children who will need the education we have robbed them of in order to be able to make the money they need to pay the enormous debt with which we have saddled them.? 40 years from now, when those bonds are retired we will all not be around to see them wrestle with the problem.? More the shame for all of us.