Budgets 'cut in half of schools'

10 May 2011 Last updated at 11:30 ET By Hannah Richardson BBC News education reporter  Some head teachers said they planned to save money on computers More than half the schools in England are facing cuts to their budgets, a survey of heads and deputies suggests.

The poll, of 1,177 school and college leaders, also suggests nearly nine out of 10 are seeing reduced support from local authorities.

The report, by school support organisation the Key, also suggests posts will go in nearly half the schools facing cuts.

The government says school budgets always go up and down.

In the last comprehensive spending review it promised to increase spending on schools budgets.

However the budget rise was so small that gains were wiped out by a slight increase in inflation.

Only 31% of those surveyed by the Key report an increased budget, while 7% say there is no change.

'Music classes'

Secondary schools seem to be feeling the pinch the most, with nearly two-thirds reporting budget cuts, compared with 44% of primaries.

Of the schools that were losing money, 53% say their school intends to spend less on building maintenance and 49% will cut spending on ICT equipment.

Others say subsidised clubs, such as music classes and Chinese and Urdu lessons, will be cut to save resources for core subjects.

The survey also suggests that few schools have seen any benefits from the extra cash targeted at poorer pupils through the pupil premium - worth ￡430 per eligible pupil.

Respondents suggest any gains had been wiped out by reductions in other areas, such as the loss of the ethnic minority achievement grant.

Six out of 10 head and deputies surveyed say they plan to compensate for losses in support service by asking school staff to take on more tasks.

Academy conversion

And nearly a third say they plan to increase their use of private sector firms to fill the gap in provision.

A spokesman for the Department for Education said: "We're protecting the schools budget in cash terms per pupil, introducing a pupil premium for disadvantaged pupils, and putting money directly into heads' hands.

"School budgets fluctuate every year as pupil numbers change so it is normal for some schools to get more, and for others to get less.

"In fact this survey shows that around a third of schools have reported an increase in funding."

Asked whether they were thinking of converting to academy status, nearly three-quarters (73%) of those surveyed say their governing body would consider it.

And 43% of heads say they would consider the change.

Academies have greater control over their budgets and can set their own pay and conditions for staff.

The research comes as the Department for Education announced that more than 1,000 schools have applied to become academies since June 2010.

Education Secretary Michael Gove said: "A third of secondary schools are now either an academy or have started on the road to conversion. This represents a fundamental shift in power away from government and towards teachers.

"Teachers, not politicians or bureaucrats, know best how to run schools."

The Texas Tribune: Children’s Hospitals See Peril in Proposed Budgets

Despite some efforts to ease the blow to pediatric health care providers, Texas’ proposed budget cuts will most likely have a disproportionate effect on children’s hospitals. The financial implications will not mean halting operations, or necessarily curbing care, advocates for the hospitals say. Instead, said Ben Melson, chief financial officer at Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston, the result will be cutting back on expansions needed to serve a growing population and on efforts to recruit and retain the best specialists and faculty.

The reason for the heavier impact hinges on Medicaid, the joint state-federal health care program that covers nearly three million needy children in Texas. State lawmakers, facing a huge budget shortfall, cannot find the multibillion-dollar savings they need without cutting already skimpy rates for Medicaid providers.

Children’s hospitals generally have much higher Medicaid populations than the average hospital — meaning rate reductions hit them harder. Their advocates estimate that the House’s budget would cost the hospitals a combined $275 million over two years; they say the version under consideration in the Senate would cost them roughly half that amount.

For Driscoll Children’s, where about 70 percent of patients are on Medicaid, the concern is not about preserving his bottom line, it is about just trying to break even. Both budget proposals “would essentially leave me a negative cash flow of about $10 million a year,” Mr. Woerner said.

Both the House and Senate versions of the budget lower Medicaid outpatient rates for children’s hospitals by 10 percent and reduce payments for nonurgent emergency room care. The House version goes even further, cutting inpatient children’s hospital rates, as well as all doctor and dentist reimbursement rates, by 10 percent.

While the Senate’s budget sharply reduces financing used to draw down a hefty federal match for children’s hospitals, the House’s zeroes it out altogether — at a loss of roughly $60 million, including the federal match, over the next biennium.

Bryan Sperry, president of the Children’s Hospital Association of Texas, said that on average, nearly 60 percent of the patients at the seven nonprofit children’s hospitals he represents are on Medicaid. In South Texas, Mr. Sperry said, that figure can reach 80 percent.

He estimates that for most Texas hospitals a 10 percent cut in the Medicaid rate would represent a loss of 1 percent of net patient revenue — but that for children’s hospitals, it would be up to 5 percent or 6 percent.

“We’re more dependent on Medicaid than any group of hospitals,” Mr. Sperry said. “Anything that happens to it has a big effect on us.”

Mr. Melson, of Texas Children’s Hospital, said his hospital stands to lose $4 million to $6 million a year through the proposed Medicaid cuts.

“We’re a high-acuity provider; we see a lot of critically ill children in our hospital,” he said. As the number of children in Texas continues to rise — it is expected to spike by another one million over the next decade — “we want to make sure we can continue to grow,” Mr. Melson said.

Mr. Sperry said children’s hospitals, which receive roughly one million outpatient visits and 500,000 emergency room visits a year, can “make it through the next two years” with the current Senate budget proposal, which could come up for a vote in the upper chamber as early as next week. The House version would be much tougher.

Regardless, Mr. Sperry said, lawmakers need to consider the long-term implications of clipping the wings of the hospitals that teach 70 percent of Texas’ pediatricians-in-training, especially as the country faces a growing shortage of physicians and specialists.