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Florida teachers are asking the state for a temporary one cent sales tax increase to avoid further budget cuts. Lawmakers have cut three billion dollars from public education since 2006 to keep up with declining tax revenues. Florida Education Association Spokesman Mark Pudlow said schools can’t take much more.

“We’ve seen some changes. There’s fewer crossing guards, fewer school resource officers, there’s some classes that have been cut. In some places teachers have been laid off, and other staff have been laid off. It’s really going to accelerate the rest of this year. We face more budget cuts this year and a big budget cut next year. You’re going to see these kinds of thing accelerate tremendously,” said Pudlow.

The Florida Education Association says raising the state sales tax by a penny for three years will pump more than 3 billion dollars into public schools, in the first year alone.