NEBRASKA /A.P. NEWS
MORE STIMULUS MONEY GIVES SCHOOLS SAFETY NET (with audio)
By John Axtell and Associated Press
Aug 24, 2010 - 9:22:19 AM

    The $59-million dollars in new federal money coming to Nebraska under the education and medicaid stimulus package earlier this month will be distributed through the state's school aid formula for next year.

     Governor Dave Heineman says the details of exactly how that will be done are still be worked out.
     
      Nebraska received some $260-million dollars for education in the original stimulus package, and split it between last year and this year...adding it to $800-million in state general funds through the school aid formula.

      State Senator Greg Adams...chairman of the Education Committee...says without the stimulus money, school districts face a sharp drop in state funding a year from now...the so-called "cliff effect." He says the new $59-million gives them something of a safety net.
   
    State Education Commissioner Roger Breed says how much of a safety net the stimulus money provides won't be known until the governor and legislature pass a new 2-year budget next year and schools can see how much in regular state aid they will receive.
   
    State officials had warned school districts from the time the initial stimulus funds were awarded that it was one-time money and to budget appropriately. Senator Adams says that's even more true with the new money, but he's confident the districts fully understand what that means.
    
    Governor Heineman has been a vocal critic of this federal stimulus package, and emphasized today the state had no choice but to take the money because it would have been distributed within Nebraska in some form even if he had turned it down.

     Asked whether he wished the state wouldn't have received the money, Heineman called that a hypothetical scenario and wouldn't answer.

     Nebraska qualifies for the federal education funding because state tax collections during the 2009 calendar year were less than 2006 tax collections, and because it agreed to spend at least as much in state aid as it did in 2006. That was $700-million...$100-million less than is being spent this year.

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