Gov. Chris Christie today will unveil a state budget that is expected to show how he intends to pay the first installment of his proposed income tax cut and how much state aid public schools will get.

Gov. Christie presented a $32.1 billion budget to the state Legislature this afternoon that increases school aid by $212.5 million, makes the largest payment toward public employee pensions in state history and uses rosy revenue projections to help pay for an income tax cut.

The release of competing state budgets Sunday by the House and Senate shows that just because Republicans control the Virginia General Assembly does not mean they agree on everything. Not even close.

Gov. Bob McDonnell, fearing that 20 Democrats will block passage of a Senate version in a floor vote a week away, released a letter he had written to two Democratic leaders urging them to reach a compromise with their 20 Republican counterparts. It provoked a scalding response.

Unlike a Feb. 1 plan by the Legislature's chief budget writers, the Democratic chief executive said Thursday he wants to tap reserves to avert the closure of Santiam Correctional Institution in Salem, block a further shift of inmates to other temporary beds, and ease or cancel some smaller cuts in education and human services.

The sixth-annual Tennessee Pork Report is chock-full yet again, of waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement of taxpayer money by state and local government officials. Despite a changing political landscape in Tennessee, wasteful government spending has not disappeared.

Gov. Mitch Daniels Numerous signed legislation that implemented his wide-ranging reform agenda, including expanding the school options available to Indiana families through vouchers and charter school opportunities and increasing accountability for both schools and teachers.

Like most other states, Alabama devotes considerable resources to its public education system. In the 2006-2007 school year, more than $3.7 billion was spent on K-12 programs for 743,000 students in more than 1,500 schools in 130 school districts

The proposed House budget would eliminate online learning for grades K-6, displacing more than 2,000 students. This would neither save the state money nor serve the interests of Washington's students.

These data are taken from the National Public Education Finance Survey and show major categories of revenue and expenditure for each public school district for fiscal 2004 through fiscal 2008.

Parents should have more control over how tax funds are spent on their own children. Our state should allow more freedom for parents to choose - or even create - public schools that best meet their children's needs. T

Explanation and review of virtual education in Arkansas.

Funding for core Arkansas government functions-education, corrections and transportation-could occur at slightly increased rates while other operations are frozen at current levels, providing $31 million in savings to cut state income, capital gains and grocery tax rates.

The idea behind student based budgeting (SBB) is for school dollars to be dispersed on a per-pupil basis and to follow individual students into schools where the principals determine how the money is best spent.

The Texas Taxpayer Savings Grant Program is designed to reduce the amount of general revenue spent on public education by reducing enrollment in and the associated costs of the state’s public K-12 schools. The program works by reimbursing parents and legal guardians for “the amount of actual tuition costs or 60 percent of the state average per- pupil spending maintenance and operations expenditures, whichever is less,” should they choose to enroll their child in a private school, rather than a Texas public school.