Arne: The new 'Decider,' at least for Florida education

So, we know that Mel Martinez and Bill Nelson jointly sent a letter to Arne Duncan, the Jefe of the Department of Education, and the Charlie himself followed up with another note asking him to please, pretty please with a cherry on top grant Florida a waiver so that we may get the stimulus funds.

You see Congress wrote the stimulus bill with a pesky clause: a state cannot receive education funds in the bill if you've cut education funding. So that must mean that Florida is totally screwed, right?

Not entirely. Commandant Arne has said that he will grant waivers if a state can show it has maintained proportional spending on education.

And, doggone it, we have! According to the Palm Beach Post, 

in 2007-08, school spending was 27.1 percent of the state's $70.4 billion budget. This year, the smaller public school budget is 27.6 percent of all state appropriations. Even though the budget for education is $6b less that it was, it is still 27% of the budget. We're totally good! 

Not so fast:  The question now becomes how do you defines the funding. As we all know too well, a large part of education funding is from property taxes, called the Required Local Effort, and Florida has to hope that those funds are counted.

Without including local property taxes in the equation, it's hard to figure out how the state could qualify for the waiver, which could be formally announced on Monday... The tax rate set by the state, known as the required local effort, now makes up 46.1 percent of the K-12 budget. Five years ago, it was 38.8 percent. When you look at all property taxes in the K-12 budget, which includes a rate set by local districts to pay for construction projects, its up to 50.5 percent of education spending. Meanwhile, the state's general revenue fund, which had accounted for 60.6 of the K-12 budget five years ago, is now for 44.7 percent.

The decision could come as early as Monday. It's pretty interesting that one dude will decide if Florida is eligible for these funds, and that dude is Secretary of Education for that matter. It's also interesting that he's sort of layin' down the law about possible future budget cuts to education. In any case, stay tuned, folks!