Family planning was the target in in Article II of the budget. The Windham School District (an education system run in state prisons) appears to be the piggy bank for Article III. The first three amendments take about $1.1 million from Windham to pay for other educational programs. The fourth takes sweeps the entire Windham budget, $84 million, for other programs.
Without the ability to use any of the rainy day fund or generate any new revenues, lawmakers are picking programs with several million available and skimming, or in Windham's case, decimating the budget.
This debate is not falling along party lines. All 4 amendments were written by Republicans. But both Democrats and Republicans are defending the program. This could be a case of a constituency without a champion at the Capitol. Prisoners could be seen as easy targets to remove funding and put to other educational programs.
