Ellington

Governor Barbour announced $171.9 million in budget cuts to state agencies today. Education, which accounts for over half of the state's budget, will pick up the brunt of those reductions, after state lawmakers protected it during a tight-fisted budgeting process this spring.

"Although we struggled very hard last year to spare education from the budget axe, and were successful to a large extent, Mississippi cannot control spending without addressing the largest line item of our budget: education," Barbour said in a statement.

Barbour's revised budget cuts most public education line items by 5 percent, including the Mississippi Adequate Education Program, the state program that balances funding for low-income schools. Among the few line items that dodged a cut this time were salary supplements for National Board Certified teachers and Student Financial Aid for colleges and universities.

Barbour's cuts come on the heels of more dismal news from the State Tax Commission. August tax collections were $5.5 million, or 1.69 percent below already conservative estimates, and 5.65 percent below last year's figures. August's report was a relative improvement from June, though, when state revenue fell $26 million, or 11 percent below projections.