Montgomery – Two-year Chancellor Bradley Byrne says he's worried the two-year college system's budget will be unfairly and drastically cut as payback for the so-called anti- double-dipping policies that were passed last year.
He led the push for the policies, which ban legislators from having jobs in the two-year system.
Byrne said Thursday that a rumored strategy is to gut the department's budget to weaken its accountability work.
But Senator Hank Sanders, chairman of the Senate education budget writing committee, said Byrne has nothing to fear and there won't be any retaliation.
Byrne is asking for $517.8 million to fund the department for the 2008-2009 fiscal year.
That's $31.8 million more than the 2007-2008 appropriation.
But even though the increase is just 6.56 percent Byrne says he knows even level funding is wishful thinking.
This year's education budget is expected to be more than $500 million less than the $6-point-7 billion spending plan for the current fiscal year.
(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)