State's Pre-K Programs Going Strong

Despite the current economic situation, Alabama's pre-K program has been funded at $19 million, $1.3 million more than the last budget. In 2008, Gov. Bob Riley's plan for expanding state-funded pre-K programs to more than 20,000 of the state's 4-year-olds by 2011 changed course. Riley's proposal was a three-year, $80 million plan that would have required the state Legislature to triple the pre-school budget at the beginning of the fiscal 2009 budget year. Revenue shortfalls, however, made an expansion of such proportion an impossibility. The slowdown forced a 12.5 percent proration in the Education Trust Fund. Riley used half of the state's rainy day fund to reduce cuts to education to 9%. In addition to the $1.3 million increase in the budget, however, there are federal stimulus dollars going into Title One schools that may be used in pre-K classes. The state's Office of School Readiness that oversees the programs and provides training and technical expertise reports that 27 new sites were funded this year. There were more than 100 requests.