2006 House Budget CARD Funding

[Guest guest]

FYI. The House budget has a $2.3 million increase included in their budget. While this is good news, it is not good enough. Please contact your legislators to ask them to support the amount in the Governor's budget, which is a $5 million increase.

I will update you on the Senate amount as soon as I get it.

Regards, Ven Sequenzia, Jr.PresidentAutism Society of Florida, Inc.PO Box 970646Coconut Creek, FL 33097 Phone Faxwww.autismfl.com

Please note the House Budget information below, and encourage your members to thank Representatives for including these items in the budget, especially the ESE Guaranteed Allocation and the Critical TEacher Shortage Program. It is important to watch these items, and encourage the Senate to move toward the House figures, as the process will hve many ups and downs before the end of the budgeting process.

House Budget

Yesterday, the House Education Appropriations subcommittee released a draft for their budget. Funding for the ESE Guaranteed Allocation was proposed to rise by 6.63% or over $68 million over the current year’s budget. This position is far and away better than the Governor’s recommendation of only 0.8% increase in the item that barely met minimum student growth projections without providing any funding for inflation within the special programs or the Senate’s current position of $15 million.

In other good news, the critical teacher shortage list received over $9 million in the House budget draft while the Senate proposed only $1.7 million

The increase for instructional materials for partially sighted materials strongly supported by CEES was included in the House Budget. We are still seeking an additional $200,000 for partially sighted materials and $122,000 as an increase for SUNLINK.

The CARD centers were recommended for a $2.3 million increase in the House’s budget which is less than the $5 million recommended by the Governor.

Bob Cerra

office

bobcerra@...