Deal made education funding a key part of his annual State of the State address to lawmakers, calling schools the "front line in our effort to create prosperity." He promised $258 million to help cover growth in enrollment in the state's K-12 and higher education systems. His plan also contained nearly $56 million to fund regularly scheduled pay raises for teachers.
"It is here that we make our most strategic investment in the future," Deal told a joint session of lawmakers on Jan. 10.
Education officials, many of whom still are examining Deal's proposals in detail, said they were relieved to see the end of the deep funding cuts common during the Great Recession when lawmakers hacked away at state spending. To cope with past cuts, school systems have resorted to saving money by having larger classes, employing fewer teachers, cutting teacher pay and even reducing the number of school days.
"The best news is that it didn't get any worse," said Herb Garrett, executive director of the Georgia School Superintendents Association, about Deal's budget.
If Deal, the husband of a teacher, is trying to gradually dig the school system out of a financial hole, schools still have a long climb. Georgia is supposed to use a standardized formula to determine how much funding schools get from the state. In the current fiscal year, Deal and lawmakers opted to give the K-12 education system more than $1.1 billion less than what's recommended in the formula, according to the state Department of Education.
"The bottom line is, because of the recession the state is still only sending local systems about 80 percent of what the formula calls for," said Garrett, referring to a gap that school leaders call Georgia's "austerity cuts."
Rep. Larry O'Neal, the Republican House leader, said he was glad to see Deal propose gradually raising spending on education. O'Neal said he worried that weak schools could prove a deterrent to attracting businesses to Georgia. He said local school officials commonly ask him when the austerity cuts will be reversed.
"As far as restoring the cuts, there's not much to restore in the sense that most of the money would have really gone to personnel," O'Neal said. "And you can't really restore personnel that could have been here three years ago. You can have personnel going forward to do a better job, and that's what this governor is trying to do."
There are smaller trims scattered in Deal's budget. For example, agriculture education programs would lose more than $192,000. The state would spend $2.6 million less on student transportation. Another $19,000 would be lost for a high school program for gifted students.
Another of Deal's education goals comes at a price. His budget would increase the school calendar by 10 days for children enrolled in state-funded pre-kindergarten classes, restoring half of the days he cut last year to help the program stay afloat. The governor would help pay for the extra days by cutting slots for 2,000 pre-k students.
Deal's proposal also contains money for new programs, including $1.6 million for a mentoring program meant to help students read at their grade level and funding for 400 new medical residency slots.
Alongside the initial state budget, Georgia is one of 10 states to be awarded $1 million by Complete College America to fuel policy innovations and reforms aimed at significantly increasing college completion. In conjunction with the grant, Deal also introduced his Complete College Georgia Initiative, which is based after the Cartersville GateKey Scholarship program.
This program, which began in 2007 through the Cartersville Schools Foundation, awards college scholarships for eligible students beginning as early as the fourth grade while holding students accountable for their grades and behavior throughout their academic career.
The scholarships are two-year scholarships awarded for Chattahoochee Technical College or Georgia Highlands College, but a recipient can protest for the scholarship to go toward another school.
"After it became obvious that [Deal] needed to, due to a shortfall in money, make an adjustment to the HOPE Scholarship program and we realized that some of the students that might not be not be able to get the [HOPE Scholarship] in the future, would be some that have the most need," Superintendent Howard Hinesley said in August. "So we made a presentation to the governor's staff and told them we felt [the Gatekey model] would be an opportunity to advance the HOPE program if they agreed with us that it needed to be."
Thirty-three states have applied for the 18-month implementation grants for innovative, high-impact college completion initiatives designed to enhance student success and close attainment gaps for traditionally under-represented populations. Georgia's application focused on restructuring remediation programs. Complete College America received funding support for the grants from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Verdaillia Turner, president of the Georgia Federation of Teachers, described Deal's budget proposal as a mixed bag for educators.
She credited Deal with restoring $3.7 million in funding for school nurses, but said it wasn't enough to make up for past cuts.
"It's a good-faith effort," she said. "I'm glad to see the governor values that we do have school nurses in the state. But God knows it's far from what we really need."
Turner was more critical of Deal's proposal to give charter schools $9 million after a Georgia Supreme Court ruling put those schools at risk of losing half their funding. Her public teachers' association considers those schools an expensive but unproven experiment.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.