LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — Kentucky teachers who rallied last week at the state Capitol to support education funding plan to be there again Friday when state lawmakers reconvene to consider overriding the Republican governor’s veto of budget and revenue measures.
The Kentucky Association of School Superintendents has encouraged local school leaders statewide to send delegations to the rally in Frankfort, said Tom Shelton, the group’s executive director. Shelton acknowledged Tuesday that “closing school may be necessary if they have too many staff absent, but that is a local decision.”
In Trimble County, the school district said on its Facebook page that classes would be canceled Friday in the northern Kentucky district to allow teachers and staff to join the rally.
In Lexington, Fayette County schools Superintendent Manny Caulk signaled he would lead the contingent of teachers and staff from the state’s second-largest school district.
“We’re going to Frankfort on Friday to make our voices heard and to insist the fight for justice, the fight to equity still continues,” he said. “That’s a fight not only about our educators. It’s about our children and families.”
Caulk didn’t say whether he would cancel school Friday.
Patricia Lea Collins, the Head Start and preschool director for the Pike County school system in eastern Kentucky, said teachers were “furious” after Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin announced Monday he would veto a $480 million tax increase and a two-year operating budget.
“It was kind of contentious … after the governor’s press conference,” she said. “People here in Pike County wanted to walk out today.”
Collins predicted the district would send a large group of teachers and staff to the Capitol on Friday.
Thousands of Kentucky teachers and other school workers swarmed the Capitol at last week’s rally, forcing superintendents in districts not on spring break to cancel school. Some school administrators have accompanied their teachers and staff to rallies in a show of solidarity.
The statewide teachers union had called on Bevin to spare the budget and revenue bills, which include no pay raises for teachers but substantially increase education funding.
The budget vetoed by Bevin included record-high classroom spending, restored funding for school transportation and family resource centers and ensured that teachers who retired after 2010 but don’t yet qualify for Medicare would have health insurance.
The revenue plan would impose a 6 percent sales tax on a variety of services like auto and home repairs while cutting the income tax rate for some individuals and businesses.
Bevin’s administration has questioned the revenue projections, saying the new taxes would not pay for the spending that lawmakers approved, but would lead to at least a $50 million shortfall over the next two years. Bevin said the budget and the new taxes were not responsible or wise.
The Kentucky Education Association denounced Bevin’s vetoes as another example of “his blatant disrespect for Kentucky’s public employees.” The Jefferson County Teachers Association, which represents Louisville educators, urged its members to take a personal day on Friday to come to the Capitol and urge lawmakers to override the vetoes.
Lawmakers could override Bevin’s vetoes later this week. The Republican-led legislature is scheduled to convene Friday and Saturday before adjourning for the year.
Teachers and other public employees also are waiting to see what Bevin does with pension legislation. The overhaul measure preserves benefits for most workers but cuts them for new teachers. Kentucky’s pension system is among the worst funded in the country. Opponents worry that the changes will discourage young people from becoming teachers.
The unrest in Kentucky comes as teachers elsewhere are mobilizing to protest low funding and teacher pay along with changes to struggling pension systems.
In Oklahoma, classes remained canceled in the state’s biggest school districts Tuesday as teachers walked out for a seventh day. Leaders of Oklahoma’s largest teacher’s union have demanded a repeal of a capital gains tax exemption. They also want the governor to veto a repeal of a proposed lodging tax as they push for more education funding in massive demonstrations at the state Capitol. The demonstrations were inspired by West Virginia, where teachers walked out for nine days earlier this year and won a 5 percent pay increase.
Collins was unsure whether Kentucky teachers would win more concessions with their rally Friday. The bigger goal, she said, is to influence legislative elections this November and in 2019, when the governor’s race will top statewide elections.
“We’re going to keep working,” she said. “We may lose this battle, but we’ll win the war in November of ’18 and November of ’19.”
