Scott Smith and Danielle Rush, Kokomo Tribune
Credit the recession, or credit the state government, but the 2009 state takeover of school budgets has proven to be a costly one for Howard County schools.
Just how costly it will ultimately be for the next two years is still up in the air, as Indiana House Republicans must await the return of their Democrat counterparts to finish the 2012-2013 state budget.
But based on the school funding proposal already passed out of the Republican-dominated House Ways and Means Committee, Howard County schools could be about to see a 5 percent state funding cut made permanent.
The schools are already having to make do with less this year, thanks to Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels’ decision to cut some $622 million in state K-12 school funding from the current two-year budget.
But now lawmakers are considering making those cuts permanent, effectively requiring all Indiana schools to make do with a new funding reality now — and probably well into the future.
“The way they’re describing it to us is that they are ‘resetting the baseline,’” Northwestern Consolidated Schools Superintendent Ryan Snoddy said of the funding proposal.
Eastern Superintendent Tracy Caddell said the formula takes schools back to 2007 funding levels, and “we all know the cost of living has gone up since 2007.”
What that means for Kokomo-Center Schools is the loss of more than $2 million in funding per year.
The schools started seeing the 5 percent cut in 2010, and the cut was continued for this year.
Now the House GOP budget proposes continuing the cuts for at least the next two years.
So, if the budget passes as is, KCS will have lost more than $8 million compared to the funding levels proposed prior to the national recession.
“I know it’s a proposal, but we have not begun to comprehend how we’d cut that much money,” KCS superintendent Jeff Hauswald said.
State Rep. Mike Karickhoff, R-Kokomo, defended the cuts, saying the state has first and foremost pledged to balance the budget without raising taxes.
Lauren Auld, press secretary for the Indiana Department of Education, said State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Bennett also supports the bill, but he anticipates changes before the budget is final.
She said it preserves current statewide tuition support for 2012 and 2013, and “aims to make sure dollars follow the students, a top priority for the INDOE. Instead of continuing to pay twice for a student who moves, the dollars go to the school the student actually attends.”
Elementary and secondary school funding now comprises 52 percent of all state spending, thanks mainly to the state’s decision to pay school general fund expenses out of state revenues instead of out of property tax revenues.
That decision, made to control property taxes, placed a major burden on the state, but it also allowed state legislators to begin thinking about normalizing school funding for all school districts.
And that’s exactly what the House GOP proposes to start doing.
Over a nine-year period, House GOP leaders want to adjust funding at every school district in the state, so that eventually the only remaining variable in school funding will be the amount of need — or “complexity” as school officials call it — in each district.
That will mean cutting per-student funding at some schools, and raising it at others, until all schools are at a standard “target” funding level.
For now, the GOP budget is mainly concerned with eliminating the few remaining contributors to school funding disparities, including three funding mechanisms that have benefited Howard County schools.
The “deghoster” — a formula that cushions schools from funding cuts due to enrollment decline — a state grant for small schools and another state grant to restore lost funding are all being eliminated in this budget proposal.
Statewide funding would remain level — $6.247 billion per year — but funding would strictly follow the student.
In all likelihood, that means Howard County schools won’t be seeing any new revenues to cushion the blow of the 5 percent funding cut.
Of the five Howard County districts, only Eastern Howard schools are projecting an enrollment increase. Caddell is predicting Eastern will end 2013 with about 100 more students than the schools enrolled annually throughout the past decade. Caddell bases the numbers on an aggressive marketing campaign Eastern is launching to draw students away from other schools, now that there is no transfer tuition charge for students who enroll before the official count day.
Per-student funding is based on enrollment on the official count day, usually in mid-September.
At Western School Corp., Superintendent Peter O’Rourke said it may be premature to comment on the formula while it is a work in progress, but “I think any effort to bring as much equity as possible into funding is a good issue.”
Caddell said, in addition to the cuts, the state Legislature is considering more charter schools and private-school vouchers, which also will cut into school funding.
He said Eastern’s part of the cuts will not be significant, but “we hate to lose any funding. We’ll continue to look for ways of cutting costs that don’t impact instruction. We’ll try to keep it as far from the classroom as possible.”
He said he would like to see the state increase education funding, to provide preschool and full-day kindergarten. Schools are now mandated by the state to have students reading at grade level before being promoted from third to fourth grade, he said.
Taylor Superintendent John Magers said the state is calling the funding flat line, but “it really is a reduction because our expenses continue to rise.”
Taylor’s per-pupil expenditure is high because, prior to the current school year, at least 30 percent of its staff was at the top of the pay scale.
The corporation is extending its retirement buyout, and those experienced teachers will be replaced with less experienced, less expensive teachers.
Magers said funding cuts could mean a few teacher layoffs as well.
He said the state has great expectations for school improvement, but it needs to make resources available for the schools to reach those goals.
“I think it’s time for the state to put its money where its mouth is, to give public schools the financial resources that it needs in order to comply with all the mandates and changes that are coming from the state,” Magers said. “If you’re going to ask us to change, don’t reduce us at the same time and give that money to a voucher system. In poor economic times, when there’s only a finite amount of money in the pot, you don’t create a new drain on the system.”