INDIANAPOLIS | The ghosts of former students haunt many school hallways in Northwest Indiana.
These ghosts aren't real; they are the legacy of students who once attended a school but left for or transferred to another. After students leave a school Indiana pays the school corporation a declining amount of money for the next three years.
The "de-ghoster," the payments for "ghost" students no longer attending their former school, is part of the state's school funding formula and in areas of the state losing student population, such as Gary, the de-ghoster brings in hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in additional state revenue that supports current students and classroom teachers.
But school corporations that are adding students despise the de-ghoster. Funding for new students doesn't come through immediately, straining resources in areas where hundreds of new students might enroll at the same time. Also, with state funds going to pay for ghost students, there is less money available for real students.
Today, state Sen. Ed Charbonneau, R-Valparaiso, begins presiding over a legislative study committee looking at ways to improve the adequacy and equity of the school funding formula in Indiana. Charbonneau told The Times he expects the de-ghoster to be among many issues the study committee studies.
"If you lose a hundred students in a school district it would be well and good if they were all in the same class so you could make cuts right away, but generally that's not going to be case," Charbonneau said. "At the same time, it's difficult when you're picking up that many students to adjust."
At today's committee meeting Charbonneau plans to essentially take state lawmakers back to school. He's asked a series of experts to testify about how exactly the Indiana school funding formula works, what other states do and how schools might save money outside the classroom in a budget year where schools could end up losing some state funding.
"Everyone there understands we have significant issues ... We want to make sure we give the best education possible to our students, have great school districts and great teachers," Charbonneau said. "It's now a matter of trying to get a consensus of some kind on how we achieve those objectives."
Not everyone is willing to wait, however.
Three growing school corporations -- Hamilton Southeastern, Franklin Township and Middlebury Community Schools -- have filed suit in Hamilton County alleging the state's method of funding schools is unconstitutional.
They say their schools only received about $5,000 per student in basic tuition support from the state last year, while other schools, such as those in Gary, got more than $8,000 per student. The suit says the school funding formula is unfairly punishing growing school corporations.
The first hearing in the case is scheduled for Sept. 14 in Noblesville.
State lawmakers changed the de-ghoster in 2009 to give schools only three years of payments, instead of five, for students no longer in attendance.
Gov. Mitch Daniels previously has proposed doing away with the de-ghoster altogether.