First of all, a special session will be required to get the budget passed. As usual, no one seems to know how or when that will happen. Some folks in the know seem to think it will be sooner rather than later; others believe that the governor will hold off on calling the special session until key lawmakers and lobbyists (yes, that’s right, I said it) can agree on the numbers. Who are the key people? That would be Gov. Bob Riley’s representatives, AEA godfather Paul Hubbert, lobbyists for the universities headed by Joe Fine and the chairmen of the House and Senate budget committees: Rep. Richard Lindsey (D-Centre) and Sen. Hank Sanders (D-Selma).

Yes, these are the same people who couldn’t agree the first time. But hey! What’s the worst that can happen? Another special session!

While our legislators and lobbyists haggle away over their BlackBerries in Montgomery, non-tenured teachers across Alabama will begin seeing pink slips on Thursday. The Mobile Press Register’s Bryan Lyman wrote a terrific article about the funding flap; among the quotes he got was this one from Alabama state School Superintendent Joe Morton:

“It won’t be a couple of firings, it will be massive,“ Morton said. “With no budget they’ll have to hedge their bets, and they’ll have to let them go.“

State Sen. Quinton Ross (D-Montgomery) called it a “sad, sad day” and added this no-brainer:

“It’s sad that we’re sending our teachers to Mississippi and Georgia to maintain employment,“ Ross said.

Tuition is likely to be increased to make up the difference at Alabama’s universities. “These are huge, huge cuts,“ University of South Alabama lobbyist Happy Fulford (yes, Happy) told Lyman. “It would seem logical to me that you’d see a tuition increase to cover costs.“

USA alone faces a $16 million cut.

The filibuster that killed the budget lasted from 10 a.m. until 10:30 p.m. Monday. Twelve and a half hours with no resolution, after 59 and a half days to come to an agreement on this issue.

In addition to the grocery sales tax repeal and the PAC-to-PAC reofrm, other bills lost in the education funding meltdown included measures that would remove state taxes on federal stimulus checks and ban smoking in public places.

From Lyman’s story:

Senators seeking to reverse cuts to four-year colleges filibustered the $6.3 billion budget for 12 hours Monday, saying colleges and universities facing $151 million in cuts were bearing too much of the burden of the $367 million in reductions in the proposed 2009 budget.

The universities sought an additional $25 million, saying the cuts would leave the state at a competitive disadvantage with other states ... Senate leadership declined to add $25 million to the budget, citing the fiscal straits of the education budget, and even dared the senators to kill it.

“I’m going to give them a chance to kill it,“ said state Sen. Hank Sanders, D-Selma, hours before Monday night’s vote. “If they want to kill it, we’ll let them kill it.“ …

“My feeling is that if there’s proration at all, and I’m not convinced we’ll be in proration, but if we are, I do not believe a one-third of one percent increase will break the camel’s back,“ said state Sen. Ted Little, D-Auburn.

The $6.3 billion education budget, which goes into effect on October 1, cuts funding for K-12 schools and colleges by $367 million, with K-12 schools ($119 million) and individual colleges bearing the brunt of the cuts.

Read Lyman’s complete article here.