FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                                          June 24, 2008

DEMOCRATS SHORTCHANGE FUEL

FUNDING FOR SCHOOL TRANSPORTATION

Democrats rammed a $21 billion plus spending plan through the North Carolina Senate last week.  The budget bill is intended to modify the second year of a two-year appropriation measure originally passed in 2007.  Senate Democrats ignored skyrocketing fuel prices and the impact of huge cost increases on local school systems across the state.  In the face of estimates that local systems will need at least $45 million in additional funds to keep school buses running, the Senate Democrat plan allocates only an extra $11 million, leaving local taxpayers with a $34 million hole to cover. 

Under North Carolina’s system of cost sharing for public schools, school buses and the operating and maintenance expenses for those buses are the state's responsibility.  Last year, when legislators drafted North Carolina’s two-year budget, they estimated the price of diesel fuel would be $1.69 per gallon this school year and $1.83 for 2008-2009 and approved appropriations to cover costs at that level.  The average price of diesel in North Carolina is currently at an all-time high.            

Senate Republicans attempted to address the shortfall; during consideration of the budget in the Senate, Senator Neal Hunt (R-Wake) distributed an amendment that would have transferred needed additional funds for fuel costs.  Democrats used parliamentary maneuvers to cut off debate and consideration of Hunt’s amendment.

Senate Republican Leader Phil Berger (R-Rockingham) made the following statement:

“Everyone has experienced rising transportation costs; North Carolina’s schools are faced with those same problems, but on a grander scale.  Public school buses are owned and maintained by the state, and it is the state government's responsibility to provide fuel for those buses.  Pushing the extra cost burden onto local school systems is irresponsible and unfair; this will affect every county in North Carolina.  People expect their elected representatives to supervise governmental operations so that the state's obligations are fulfilled.  What we see by this action is yet another example of the failure of Democrat leadership.  There is a need for real change in education so that policy and fiscal decisions are made to benefit students, not politicians and state bureaucrats.”

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