For public schools, the state’s new $31 billion biennial budget brings good news and bad, though the bad isn’t quite as horrible as some local public school officials had feared it would be.
And the good isn’t as terrific as Republicans, who control both houses of the General Assembly and the governor’s office, would have you believe.
First, the not-so-great good. The budget passed last week will provide a 2.3 percent hike — $460 million — in funding for K-12 education across the state over the next two years. That’s undeniably a step in the right direction.
But keep in mind that then-Gov. Mitch Daniels a few years ago, in the maddening throes of the recession, hacked $300 million out of education spending. Public schools across the state are still recovering from that.
Now, the not-so-horrible bad news. Because the 2016-17 budget includes a new formula for figuring funding of school districts across the state, many schools in the Madison County area will see little of the 2.3 percent overall increase. The new formula, you see, is meant to redistribute money from shrinking urban and rural school systems, which comprise about a third of the state’s 300 districts, to growing suburban schools.
Taking a simplistic view, this seems only fair. Money should follow the students, right? Well, not entirely.
Urban school districts, such as Anderson Community Schools, often have fewer community resources, more poverty and a higher percentage of kids in need of extra help. Therefore, in order to provide the level of education demanded by state standardized testing, they need more money.
According to projections from the state’s Legislative Services Agency, Anderson’s $49.8 million budget for the current school year would fall to $49.2 million for 2016 before rising to $50.2 million in 2017. Per-pupil spending would increase a bit, as well, from $7,368 this year to $7,564 in 2017.
Doesn’t seem that bad, right? Well, it’s not good. The $400,000 rise across the two-year period won’t be enough to keep pace with increasing costs for salaries, supplies and other considerations, even if the enrollment declines, as projected, from 6,755 to 6,639.
Elwood Community Schools would suffer the most among local schools, according to the LSA’s projections, with the ECS budget falling from $9.9 million this year to $9.4 million in 2017. That decline would be facilitated by a loss of almost nine percent of enrollment over the two-year period.
These, of course, are all just projections. And they don’t take into account budget cuts for urban and rural school districts to come in the year 2018, called for by the state’s education funding plan.
The initial state budget proposal had included an immediate change in the school funding formula. But the budget passed last week phases in the new formula so that cuts for urban and rural districts are spread across three years.
It’s particularly painful for public school supporters to see a portion of the 2.3 percent school funding increase go to charter schools. The budget calls for an additional $10 million to be funneled in that direction.
While increased education spending in the new budget isn’t as terrific as Republicans would have you believe, it’s also not as dire as some Democrats and urban/rural school officials would suggest.
For the hardest-hit local districts, Anderson and Elwood schools, per pupil spending will actually increase over the next two years. That puts the burden of responsibility on the schools and the community to keep families from moving out and kids from transferring to other districts.