Prepared By the Higher Education Partnership

Montgomery, AL, March 2, 2001— With one day remaining in the special session, it is clear that none of the proposed legislative initiatives designed to divide K-12 and higher education, will be adopted. The Higher Education Partnership and the 10,500 faculty, staff and student members are pleased that our friends in the Alabama Senate and Alabama House of Representatives have voiced their strong disagreement with efforts to force higher education to bear a larger share of the proration burden.

Today's decisive vote for Senate Bill 24 showed that the Alabama Senate, under the leadership of Lt. Gov. Steve Windom, was not going to allow higher education to be treated any different than K- 12. Many House and Senate leaders worked aggressively to support the university position of equal treatment and their effort is greatly appreciated by the 150,000 families within Alabama's university community. No doubt, the legislative outcome is a victory for the universities!

However, the state must not lose focus on the revenue question. Only by generating additional financial support for K-12, post-secondary and universities, will the state truly solve this problem. The Partnership looks forward to working with other education organizations, businesses and civic groups as we build support for properly funding public education.

A productive educational system does not pit K-12 against higher education. The Partnership thanks the thousands of faculty, staff, student and alumni supporters who actively entered into this process. Their participation in rallies, phone banks, etc. made a difference. Now, we are encouraging all of them to focus their energies on the adoption of the 2001-2002 budget that provides funding that "measures up to the competition." The 2001-2002 budget proposal must be rewirtten and higher education's portion increased. .