Tuesday is the day the legislature is supposed to come up with the education budget, but ever since that deadline was set back in 2003 it hasn't been met. Superintendents are asking how they can trust the system when the people running it have let them down time and time again.
"[Meeting the deadline] has never been done, ever," says Rep. Ray McCarter, D-Marlow.
"You can call it a chicken or an egg," says Oktaha Public Schools Superintendent Jerry Needham. "You can move a dollar from here to over here. The reality was when the year ended, we were still $17 million short of what the allocation was supposed to be."
That $17 million dollar shortage was for the last fiscal year. This fiscal year Rep. Jerry McPeak, D-Warner, says the legislature has shorted education $41.6 million. Schools just received $11.5 million as a supplemental, which still leaves them about $30 million short.
"The term supplement is not really a supplement," says McPeak. "What they have decided to do is give these people money that they already promised. That's not a supplement. In fact, they didn't give them what they already promised them."
"The part that makes me mad is we're shorting the children of Stigler, Oklahoma because of our inability to put priorities straight in this state," says Stigler Public Schools Superintendent Bill Self.
Those in the legislature say they're working to give schools the rest, but superintendents say they fear a repeat of history.
"Why should we believe that?" asks Needham. "It didn't happen last year. That's where I'm at. I tell you I don't believe it."
While education has been one of the most talked about and debated topics at the Capitol, superintendents say legislators are focusing on the wrong issues.
"Teachers in those classrooms are busting their rear-ends doing the ... best they can do every day," says Self. "If I've got a teacher that's willing to work harder for merit pay, they don't have enough backbone to be in the classroom. I would fire them. Now, let's get our priorities straight and fund the children of Oklahoma."
Rep. Tad Jones, R-Claremore, the chairman of the House Education Committee says they're hoping to give the rest of the money over the course of the next two months. He says they'll meet at the end of this month to work out the distribution, and for the education budget for the next fiscal year he says it will be finished very soon.
Jones also says they didn't make the deadline this year because of complications due to budget shortfalls. He says last year that did meet the deadline, but it didn't stick because the governor vetoed the bill.
