I just watched CNN’s Soledad O’Brien sandbag former White House Communications Director Nicole Wallace by asking her how Sarah Palin can claim to be a defender of special needs children when she cut the budget for that Alaska office by 62 percent. Wallace wasn’t familiar with the charge — which isn’t surprising, since it’s only being made on DailyKos and another liberal site. (Tip for Ms. O’Brien: DailyKos is not a reliable news site.)
This charge is based on looking at the budget for Alaska’s Special Education Service Agency for 2007-2009. In fact, the December 2006 budget document that they cite would have been prepared by the outgoing administration — that of Republican Frank Murkowski, whom Palin defeated.
What’s gone unmentioned is that the Palin signed into law a dramatic reform of the state’s education financing system that equalizes aid to rural and urban districts, while significantly increasing funding for special needs students.
There’s more to the story than an honest mistake by CBS.
In FY 07, before Palin worked on the budget, the state of Alaska had four distinct programs funded under it’s special education management budget: something called SESA, a psychiatric program, a school for the deaf, and the Alaska Challenge Youth Academy. In FY 08, the first Palin year, the first three programs - SESA, the psychiatric program, and the school for the deaf - were still in the special education management budget and their funding was approximately the same as it was in FY 07. But the Alaska Challenge Youth Program isn’t listed and it’s omission accounts for what appears to be a huge drop in funding for special education services.
I wondered why the program was dropped and googled the Alaska Challenge Youth Academy. Guess what? In FY 08 the academy was moved out of special education management and became it’s own program. And it’s funding was increased by about $2.8 million (to $8,234,000 in FY 08from $5,449,300 in FY07).
Here’s a link to the program’s FY 08 budget
http://gov.state.ak.us/omb/08_OMB/bu…D/comp2837.pdf
CBS, CNN and the other reporters could have discovered this had they simply read the 5, yes 5, page reports. It took me all of 30 second to discover this, and I’m as at home Mom with nothing but google to help me.
A commenter (Jim Syar) accused Sarah Palin of reducing the special education budget by 62%. That is false. The special education budget actually increased by nearly 12%, as explained below.
As Syar correctly notes, the Alaska 2007 budget for special education was $8,265,300. But that included $5,352,000 for the Alaska Challenge Youth Academy.
In the 2009 budgetary document to which Syar links, astute observers will note that there is no mention of the Alaska Challenge Youth Academy. Instead, you have to look elsewhere. And guess what: There is now a specific document providing $6,082,100 for the Alaska Challenge Youth Academy. (Link) So combined with the $3,156,000 that Syar notes, the total is $9,238,100. A nearly 12% INCREASE, not a 62% decrease.
retraction-
Sarah Palin might have changed her mind on this one recently. However, a comment here notes that Palin actually slashed funding for schools for special needs kids by 62%. Budgets: FY 2007 (pre-Palin), 2008, 2009 (all pdfs).
UPDATE: This is wrong. As you can see if you look at the list of component budgets here (2007) and here (2009), funding for the Alaska Challenge Youth Academy was broken out into its own budget category, which accounts for the drop in funding for the original item. I regret the error. Thanks to rory in comments.END UPDATE.
The Washington Monthly
Michelle Malkin » Not again: Palin “slashes” another children’s program…by increasing funding; Update: Washington Monthly retracts, what about the rest of the MSM?
and-
The Weekly Standard