Talk:Emergency Education Appropriations Act

Emergency Education Appropriations Act, 654

Jonn Stevens (DPPK) OP

— 08/09/2023 9:28 PM

Tabled by Braughn F. G. Kryos, MGA, KWP, Minister as a government sponsored bill. An act to reduce overspending on education and improve budgetary balance. Voting is currently set for the 23d of August https://kodiak.wiki/wiki/Emergency_Education_Appropriations_Act The Kodiak Republic Wiki Emergency Education Appropriations Act An act to reduce overspending on education and improve budgetary balance. ACTION on ## MONTH ### with ## Aye, ## Nay, ## Abstain.

Amends State-Funded University Education Act, 649 Jonn Stevens (DPPK) OP

— 08/09/2023 9:28 PM

@Assembly Member debate is now open for the Emergency Education Appropriations Act, 654

Anthony Dvorak — 08/10/2023 3:36 AM As I've made clear before, while I understand we need to cut down on spending in this trying time, taking away resources from the ministry of education only goes to hurt our collective future;

How many high school graduates will be forced to put off college, or skip it entirely because the state stood back on its promise of financial support? How many prospective engineers and doctors will we be missing after the fiscal crisis is over? These are all the questions that get brought up when cutting the education budget. We are not merely investing in the future when spending money on education, we are upholding our present societal and economic progress.

Braughn F. G. Kryos — 08/10/2023 3:43 AM And I entirely agree. But this is necessary in the short term in order to make sure that we have a country. Yes, education spending is incredibly important, but we cannot sustain the support we have provided. We cannot continue to simply throw money at education and hope for a positive outcome; we need to scale back and improve our economy first. I hate cutting back on education funding just as much as the next member. But, sadly, frustratingly, it cannot be avoided.

von Zeppelin [CKA] — 08/10/2023 3:44 AM I vote in favor of this bill because it is necessary and justified.

Braughn F. G. Kryos — 08/10/2023 3:48 AM Our economy is in the bottom of a well. Our education funding currently makes up more percentage of our GDP than any other consideration, well above the average for nations with ten times our GDP.

Charlotte Groves (Juliette)[KWP] — 08/10/2023 5:12 AM If I may make a statement from the perspective of the Ministry with the 'economy' in its portfolio.

Some stats that I've calculated as part of my internal investigations into the Kodiak economy:

The current spend on state schools constitutes ~6.59% GDP, and reducing by 24 billion from 52.88 billion annually -> 28.88 billion ends up ~3.6% GDP.

The nation that invests the most in primary to secondary education is presently Norway, at least in terms of available data, at 4.5% GDP.

The average spend in the 'G20' group of nations is 3.2%. Despite the reduction, we will still be investing in our children.

In Norways case their economy is far far far healthier than we are, and our economy has been either flat or freefalling, so it has unfortunately not kept up with our spend. We simply cannot sustain our present expenditure if we want to avoid financial collapse which will certainly be worse for the prospects of our citizens futures. Our debt will continue to increase uncontrollable, and our government income cannot keep up.

I am in agreement - I would rather not but we have no choice. Not touching the education budget would make it impossible to reduce the budget significantly enough that we will survive. The Minister of Education has a very unenviable tough task here.

The positive note of course is that the maximum spend on education so far has been well spent in the last 7 years. Certainly covering many schools and their mandated 5-year plans in that period. The reduction in the budget would lessen the overall pot yes - but the current education system at the state level is still designed to ensure that the schools that need the funds most will get it, as the Minister hasn't proposed to change that, which is good.

W Magnus Ward (NUP) — 08/10/2023 5:15 AM Yes, and that is also to note that the state schools budget alone accounts for nearly 30% of state expenditure. When we're over spending revenue by 50%, there is essentially no way to return the budget to something workable without touching on school funding. This isn't just about what's best ideologically, its about what's possible mathematically.

Anthony Dvorak — 08/10/2023 5:36 AM thank you for these helpful details. In light of this analysis, I would be willing to support this bill, but only if we open a discussion on introducing new programs which would alleviate the financial burden off of the common student The goal of these programs would be to help the common student minimize the amount of money they spend on expenses such as housing and tuition, and there are a lot of ways we could go about that;

One idea, off the top of my mind, is a student adoption programme; A family of a student attending a local university, which has sufficient space in their home, could agree to accept a student coming from another city who also seeks to study at that university

Another one would be to somehow encourage universities to cut costs while not compromising on their academic quality. I kindly ask all assembly members to think about creative ways we can keep our educational institutions revered around the world

Braughn F. G. Kryos — 08/10/2023 5:47 AM The serious question is this: in an economic disaster, how on earth do we propose new plans? If we take funding from legitimate education programs, how does it make sense to try and push money towards other, secondary education projects? Additionally, the funding reduction towards university education is quite small, all things considered. Little on that front will change, other than the fact that post-graduate degrees will no longer be funded in full at state institutions. Only primary and secondary education will see a large budgetary cut. Considering what Minister Groves so kindly pointed out, the impact on our long term education and even our undergraduate education will be minimal. Or minimal possible, given the circumstances. I appreciate the mindset of Mr Dvorak, but the point of reducing our budget is to, in fact, reduce our budget.

Anthony Dvorak — 08/10/2023 6:05 AM I understand your concerns but Im afraid you mightve missunderstood me. The point of these programs would be exactly that they lower the burden of students without any notable state investments. We need to offer the people infrastructure to further minimize the reduction in funding.

While I recognize we need to cut down on our budget, when working with education we need to have very distant foresignt, as the effects of our decisions today, will only be noticeable some decade, or even longer, in the future. We need to take into consideration every possibility to minimize the impact of a reduction in funding

Kenward Matthews (SAK) — 08/10/2023 10:34 AM I agree with Mr Dvorak on the matter

Braughn F. G. Kryos — 08/10/2023 11:13 AM I don't understand how we would be able to do either of those programs without some sort of budget. Things don't simply happen because we wish them to. Simply saying "encourage universities to cut costs" without a way to actually encourage them is like passing a resolution to officially change the color of the sky to purple; pointless and useless. You expect the hardworking, poor families of Kodiak to simply take in students without government assistance? How many families can barely afford the basic necessities? How many can afford another mouth, another warm body, another bed and room? Few enough.

Kenward Matthews (SAK) — 08/10/2023 2:19 PM If it can't happen without spending money, then we won't do it. Though I do think we should at least try

Braughn F. G. Kryos — 08/10/2023 2:31 PM How do you suggest we do that, though?

Jonn Stevens (DPPK) OP

— 08/10/2023 2:32 PM

If I may I think that programs like what members are suggesting would cost a uncertain of money in a budget crisis I literally see no problem with this as @Charlotte Groves (Juliette)[KWP] stated we spend 6.59% of GDP we would literally just reduce it from that to 3.6% of GDP we are literally just reducing that enormous sum to the literal average of what most countries spend on education

Anthony Dvorak — 08/10/2023 2:37 PM Apologies for the late reply, fellow assembly members. To clarify, if we are cutting milions of florins from the education budget, Im sure we can spend a minimal amount on administrative fees to kickstart programs. Right now, as I mentioned, we would essentially cut the budget and leave a lot of aspiring college students out to dry, which simply does not sit right with me.

Alternatively, Id be willing to support a compromise where everything that has to do with funding scholarship grants and similar is only implemented to the generation thats starting high school education next year, which would affectively make a decent part of this bill go into effect only after 4 years

Jonn Stevens (DPPK) OP

— 08/10/2023 2:38 PM

What exactly would you consider minimal?

Anthony Dvorak — 08/10/2023 2:38 PM I have to disagree with your logic. While its true we are spending more on education than an average nation, it still means that our society has been accustomed to that form of quality which I believe is a giant advantage Kodiak has over other nations, we should be wary when giving away such advantages that can only be built after years of tradition and successful implementation

Kenward Matthews (SAK) — 08/10/2023 2:39 PM I think the main problem here is that the funding is cut of with such a large amount in one time. I'm not against it being lowered, but perhaps it should be done in two or three steps? Otherwise the changes would be too large to handle at once. Maybe every year a third, then you have three years to adapt

Anthony Dvorak — 08/10/2023 2:40 PM That depends on our solutions, but I believe it could be driven down to the prices of overtime work for teachers, and discounts for dormatories, certainly incomparable to the money we would be saving by this cut on funding

Braughn F. G. Kryos — 08/10/2023 3:22 PM Three years is too long. In five years, we will not have a country, much less an education system. The cuts need to be now and they need to be what they are.

Braughn F. G. Kryos — 08/10/2023 3:34 PM we would essentially cut the budget and leave a lot of aspiring college students out to dry Except we would not. A reduction from 1.2 billion to 800 million accounts for the fact that only undergraduate degrees will be fully funded in state universities. Similarly with the reduction of scholarship grants. Students wont be left high and dry, but they will need to actually study hard in school, perhaps get a job to pay basic utilities and rent, and learn to cook some of their own food. I did all of those things while in university and, being that I still always had a place to stay (a dorm) and a place to eat (the cafeteria), it was a safe place to learn such things. Yes, it will be hard for some students, but reducing our funding down to average for not all countries, but for G20 countries, the top 20 economies in the world. I will remind Mr. Dvorak that we do not have a top 20 GDP. So, in short, college students will not be left out to dry, but they wont be handed everything on a silver platter. Some of them will have to work a bit harder or get a job, which is regrettable, but it is better for them to work harder for a few years and have an economy to join rather than have a broken country.

Braughn F. G. Kryos — 08/10/2023 3:43 PM That's just not how it works. Like I said, you cannot expect a system to work without funding. Nor does it make sense to indirectly fund education when we are already cutting back direct education funding. It's pointless.

W Magnus Ward (NUP) — 08/10/2023 7:53 PM If I may - we have spent double the average (and 150% the highest) amount percent of GDP on education for something like 10 years (out of a 5 year funding guarantee). Schools should have been preparing for cuts, and to suggest that after all that investment we're suddenly smashing our students into the rocks of (merely average) mediocrity is just irrational. No one wants to cut spending so drastically across so many departments. But if we don't cease the bleeding this term, we will not only default - we will bankrupt. Debt-to-GDP is 100% and increasing by 5% every year. Our interest payments are not only the second highest line-item in the budget, but they're set to increase when our credit rating is downgraded (which it may do again this term).

The choice we have is - do we spend less on students today so we have a future tomorrow, or do we spend nothing on the education budget as its all gone to interest payment. The choice we don't have is to keep increasing the debt.

Perhaps in 5 to 10 years, if we can get our debt under control, and we did the hard work, and our economy begins to recover - THEN we will be able to outspend the globe on education. Until then, I'm sorry but these are the choices that we have to make. And I sincerely hope that our suggestion of "average first world education funding" doesn't do any harm to our students.

W Magnus Ward (NUP) — 08/13/2023 12:21 AM Recognising the challenges presented by the members above, while also noting the relative intransigence I have and my government has on the point of budget reduction - I would like to motion that we move to a vote with the proposal as presented.

Jonn Stevens (DPPK) OP

— 08/13/2023 12:31 AM

Would the member specify what date he is motioning the vote to be had on

W Magnus Ward (NUP) — 08/13/2023 12:32 AM as soon as practicable Jonn Stevens (DPPK) OP

— 08/13/2023 12:32 AM

Would the member be satisfied with tomorrow

W Magnus Ward (NUP) — 08/13/2023 12:33 AM whenever the President feels best fits procedural fairness Jonn Stevens (DPPK) OP

— 08/13/2023 12:34 AM

Ok then if their are no objections the vote will begin tomorrow (for me currently the 13th of august)

Braughn F. G. Kryos — 08/13/2023 2:25 AM I second that motion. EasyPoll BOT

— 08/13/2023 5:30 PM

Question Do you approve of The Emergency Education Appropriations Act 654

Choices 🇦 Aye 🇧 Nay 🇨 Abstain

Final Result 🇦 ▓▓▓▓▓▓▓░░░ [17 • 71%] 🇧 ▓░░░░░░░░░ [3 • 13%] 🇨 ▓▓░░░░░░░░ [4 • 17%] 24 users voted

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Allowed roles: @Assembly Member Poll ID: 85c60d4d Jonn Stevens (DPPK) OP

— 08/13/2023 5:31 PM

@Assembly Member voteing for the Emergency Education Appropriations Act 654 Jonn Stevens (DPPK) OP

— Today at 9:31 PM

@Assembly Member with a margin of 17 aye 3 nay 4 Abstain this proposal is declared past