Back in the 90’s Kentucky Education struggled to effectively fund all of the schools effectively. Districts in the state were rated at some of the lowest in the country. When the state government overhauled the school budgets, it significantly increased the schools influence and ability to teach students efficiently and effectively. Now that quality is being threatened by Matt Bevin’s budget plan to cut state costs by 12%.

While 12% does not seem like a large slice of the governor’s pie, it has to come from somewhere. That somewhere is public schools. For instance, in the 90’s, the state covered 100% of transportation costs. Since then that has shrank to 58%. With another cut to that budget, parents of students that ride buses may have  to start driving them or pay for bus transportation.

The only solution, given that Bevin will still try to cut the budget and the population will keep rising and filling more schools, is to stop free public transportation and other benefits.

Let me tell you how it seems at Lafayette now with the current budget from a students perspective. As of 2015, 34% of our student body is economically disadvantaged and 30% receive a free lunch. Along with this we are suffering from a lack of substitutes. Students and teachers alike are working together to try and use the backpack program to help those in misfortune. The Courier Journal reports that the state is 39 billion dollars in debt due to teacher pensions and says it will balloon to 4 billion more dollars with new conservative assumptions on the budget.

Cutting down the budget helps a lot inside the government, but those actions can have nasty ripple effects for the rest of us.