Governor says he won’t budge on education funding

Democrat Governor Tom Vilsack says he will not compromise on the level of state spending on education.Republican legislators propose spending less than last year on schools — from kindergarten to the graduate level. Vilsack says that’s unacceptable, and he says he wants to make sure he’s clear on the point. Vilsack says the proposed budget would hurt the progress that’s been made in education.Vilsack says it doesn’t make sense to “underfund” the teacher pay initiative, dump the program that provides new technology to schools or fail to provide increases to community colleges or to the state-supported universities.Republicans contend their budget plan will spend just about as much money on education as was spent last year.