JACKSON – Gov. Haley Barbour predicts that education will be spared from the next round of budget cuts he expects to make.

“More cuts are likely...,” the second-term governor said recently. “I think more cuts to education are unlikely.”

Because state taxes collections are not coming in as projected and not at a pace to fund the budget, he already has cut nearly $172 million, including $158 million from education from the kindergarten through the university level.

Another $100 million, he said, might have to be cut from the budget passed earlier this year if tax collections do not improve.

The Republican governor chose to cut primarily education earlier this month, he said, because it is one of the few state agencies that did not receive less money in the budget passed by the 2009 Legislature than in the budget passed in 2008.

Because of federal stimulus program, he said, education still receives more money than it ever has. But critics of the Barbour budget cuts say much of those funds are earmarked for specific areas, such as special education, and cannot be used for the basic operation of the schools, such as hiring and paying teachers.

Under state law, the governor must reduce all agencies 5 percent before he cuts any agency more than 5 percent.

“The next cuts have to come from agencies that have not been cut (by him) this year,” Barbour said. “...Those agencies must be cut before education can be cut again even though education is getting more than last year and those agencies are getting 5, 6 or 7 percent less than last year.”

The difference is that those agencies were cut by the Legislature. Under state law, to make his reductions to offset slumping state tax collections, Barbour cannot take into account how much agencies were cut by the Legislature.

His must start from the last action of the Legislature.

Senate Public Health Committee Chairman Hob Bryan, D-Amory, said the governor should not be making any cuts.

“I fundamentally disagree with the cuts the governor is making, and I fundamentally disagree with his approach,” Bryan said. “The federal government is running a stimulus program. I think sometimes the governor is running an anti-stimulus program.”

Bryan said economists are in near-unanimous agreement that government spending is required to get the country out of the recession.

And he said stimulus programs passed by governments throughout the world are having a positive impact. Yet in Mississippi, at a key point in the economic cycle, Bryan said the governor is cutting funding.

He said the state has funds in other accounts that could be spent in lieu of cuts. During the 2009 session, legislators pointed to sources of state money totaling more than $500 million that could be used to offset cuts.

Among those unspent monies is about $260 million in the rainy day fund.

Barbour has said the rainy days funds need to be preserved to deal with a slump in tax collections that could last another three years.

Contact Bobby Harrison at (601) 353-3119 or bobby.harrison@djournal.com.