The trend is not going to stop.

We met with Senate and House leaders, and they felt they could cure it during the session. I'm very confident [schools] will be able to use co-teaching.

We have tremendous concerns in three areas: transportation, because of rising fuel costs; utilities, because of rising fuel costs; and increases in health care costs. We could have given teachers a 7 percent pay raise instead of taking those things away. We could have hired more of those teachers at a higher salary.

The list is ludicrous. I think the intelligent voter would look at this and say this is so far off, it's incredible.

Overall, it's a very good budget, especially looking at his proposal for teacher recruitment and retention.

I have seen it time and time again. You dictate what you want that leadership to do. When that happens, you will see an improvement in education in this county.