By Eric Bradner, Evansville Courier & Press
INDIANAPOLIS - Southwestern Indiana's rural school districts, many of which are experiencing declining enrollments, will face some tough choices under terms of the state's new budget that links funding to the number of students in their classrooms.
Although they'll be getting more per pupil, with enrollments declining and students moving to suburban schools, rural districts will have to cope with the loss of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
In school districts where money already is tight, that could mean eliminating programs such as foreign language instruction and advanced-placement courses. The result, superintendents from those districts say, is that students have less access and fewer choices.
The budget sting is harsh in Posey County's three school districts. North Posey schools lose $400,000 over two years. Mount Vernon schools face a similar cut.
Worse off is New Harmony Schools. Although it will receive more money per pupil, because of declining enrollment the current $1.6 million in state funding is being slashed almost $100,000 next year and $65,000 more the following year..
Superintendent Fran Thoele said New Harmony won't have to cut teachers right away, but it will have to eliminate support staff, such as teacher's aides, and look for ways to further trim its administrative staff.
Her hope, she said, lies in an economic rebound and restoration of the cuts.
"It's a shock. It's going to be really tough. We're hoping the economy turns around because there is some hope built in that way, but we don't know if that's going to happen," she said.
"We're trying to get down that cost per student, and we're doing it by putting 35 kids in a classroom, and in the end, when that happens, you have less kids graduate," Thoele said.
Posey County's legislators fought to the end of June's special legislative session to bring more money to their school districts.
Rep. Trent Van Haaften, D-Mount Vernon, highlighted the role rural schools play in their communities, casting them as the backbone of rural economies during an impassioned speech on the House floor.
Bailout bashed
He bashed the multimillion dollar bailout for Indianapolis' professional sports stadiums while school budgets are being slashed, saying what people in his community care about is seeing the North Posey Vikings take the football field on Friday nights.
Sen. Bob Deig, D-Evansville, drew on the irony that schools in New Harmony, the town of Robert Dale Owen, who was instrumental in assuring public education's place in Indiana in the 1800s, are among the hardest hit.
"The governor's priority is to take care of professional athletes in Indianapolis over educating your children, and I cannot support that," Deig said. "This budget concentrates wealth in the suburban schools, benefiting few schools and too few children. This is not a long-term plan, it is a power grab by the privileged."
But the budget passed despite such rhetoric. The spending plan shifts funds away from low-income, declining urban and rural schools and toward growing suburban schools.
Republican budget architects said that's the way it should be - the money should follow the student. If students are leaving rural schools, those schools serve fewer people and they shouldn't need as much money, they argued. Because declining urban and rural schools got bigger per-pupil boosts than growing suburban schools, they said, those schools got more than fair treatment.
The Evansville Vanderburgh School Corp. picks up about $950,000 next year, though it loses $600,000 of that the following year..
District cuts
But the state's largest school district, Indianapolis Public Schools, loses $20 million over two years, dipping from $292 million to $272 million. Northwestern Indiana's Gary Community School Corp., loses more than $8 million.
Still, those districts easily best Evansville in per-pupil funding. Evansville gets about $6,600 per student, while Indianapolis gets closer to $9,000 and Gary receives about $10,000. Evansville's funding per student was closer to Fort Wayne's, which is about $6,900. The difference is that Fort Wayne Community Schools' funding goes up in both years of the budget.
One local school district will get a boost.
The Warrick County School Corp. gets a bump from $54.9 million this year to $55.6 million next year. That drops $100,000 the following year, but the district still nets a boost close to the 1.3 percent state average.
Gibson County's three school districts could feel the pinch as well.
South Gibson School Corp. sees its $11.5 million in state funding bumped up by about $70,000. But its per-pupil funding actually ticks downward by $21, or 0.4 percent.
East Gibson School Corp. gets less of a boost, at only $10,000 over the biennium. However, its per-pupil funding increases by $202, or 3 percent.
North Gibson School Corp. does the best, gaining $100,000 over two years and seeing a $141 boost in per-pupil funding, or 2.2 percent.
But educators complain that flat funding - essentially what Gibson County gets - means cuts, considering the rising costs schools face each year.
East Gibson Superintendent Franzy Fleck said his administrative staff is as lean as can be. Though he said he takes pride in keeping student-teacher ratios down, cutting teachers is one of the only options left.
Fleck said he's glad his district got the increase, because a flat-lined budget can't support rising salaries and costs of utilities, transportation and food.
"You still have to turn on the lights. You still have to pay for these costs," Fleck said. "There's not a lot of waste and want among any of the (rural) districts."