Iowa House approves 1.11 percent school funding increase

DES MOINES — Iowans warned lawmakers Monday that a proposed $40 million increase in state school aid to K-12 schools will result in larger classes, fewer course offerings and layoffs.

'It's a travesty,' Mark Bussel of Marion said at a 90-minute public hearing before the House took up Senate File 166, which was approved on a party line vote by the Senate last week.

After four hours of floor debate, SF 166 was approved on a 55-40 vote, with Republican Reps. Clel Baudler and Andy McKean voting 'no.' However, floor manager Rep. Walt Rogers, R-Cedar Falls, argued that more money is not always the answer to the challenge of meeting the state's goal 'to educate every student the very best we possibly can.'

'Does it always involve more money? I don't believe it does,' he said when floor debate began about 7 p.m. 'Dollars are one tool, one tool of many in the toolbox of educating our children.'

That might be true, said Rep. Sharon Steckman, D-Mason City, who pointed out the average annual increase in state school aid over the past eight years has been 1.83 percent.

'But you can't underfund schools year after year after year and say, 'Well, it's really not about the money.' It is about the money,' she said.

Rogers concluded the debate by pointing out that since Republicans have been in the majority in the House they have never cut education funding. Instead, education funding has increased by $730 million or 30 percent, he said.

With schools telling lawmakers their costs are rising more than 3 percent a year, House Democrats called for raising new funding to 4 percent to bring school districts to what Rep. Cindy Winckler, D-Davenport, called 'wholeness.' It was what 70 percent of superintendents surveyed by Democrats said they needed. Another 10 percent of superintendents asked for a 6 percent increase.

When that amendment failed 38-57, Democrats tried to amend the bill to raise funding to the 2 percent Branstad recommended for each of the next two years — $78.8 million next year and $63.5 million in fiscal 2019. That also failed 39-56.

The floor debate was the culmination of a day-long discussion of school funding that started with the governor's weekly question-and-answer session that led to a news conference organized by Iowans for Public Education followed by a 90-minute public hearing.

At the hearing, parents, teachers, union officials and lawmakers said a 1.11 percent increase is not enough to meet schools' increased costs next year.

'It represents a lot of pink slips to hardworking teachers,' Sioux City school board member Perla Alarcon-Flory said. 'This is not sufficient to fund my district's schools and I know many other districts are in the same position.'

Alarcon-Flory blamed the low funding increase on older lawmakers '(who) don't even have grandchildren in the school system.' And those who have school-aged children either homeschool them or send them to private schools, she said.

The 1.11 percent increase would amount to an additional $73 per student, increasing the state cost per pupil from $6,591 to $6,664, according to the Legislative Services Agency. The bill also will boost 'categorical' funding to help reduce class sizes, boost teacher salaries and pay for early intervention programs by 1.11 percent and provide a $5.3 million boost in property tax replacement money.

As a result of SF 166, about 179 school districts — 54 percent — will be under the state's budget guarantee, a safeguard for schools dealing with declining enrollments that provides for 1 percent funding growth using local property taxes.

The LSA estimated the total increase in property taxes, including budget guarantee as well as the increase from the uniform levy and adjustments due to enrollment changes for all districts will be about $55.4 million to $1.75 billion.

A 4 percent increase would mean only 56 districts on the budget guarantee and a $3.45 million property tax increase, Winckler said.

Brad Hudson of the Iowa State Education Association, which represents 34,000 educators, said the increase in school aid should be in line with K-12's share of the general fund budget. According to the Legislative Services Agency, K-12 state school aid has increased from about $1.6 billion in 1998 to slightly more than $3.1 billion in fiscal 2016. As a percent of the general fund budget, it has increased from 35.7 percent to 42.3.

Hudson said the 1.11 percent hike is about 25 percent of the new money projected for the coming fiscal year.

Iowa City parent Karen Nichols, whose spouse also works as a teacher, told lawmakers continual underfunding of K-12 schools is placing stress on teachers. Like many speakers, she warned that low salaries will make it hard to attract and retain good teachers.

As teachers deal with large class sizes, the cost of buying their own classroom supplies and the time needed to prepare students for testing they are unable to offer the same rigor as in the past.

That impacts not only students, but Iowa as a whole, Steckman said.

'We're educating the next generation workforce,' she said. 'We need to give kids the tools they need.'

However, increasing school funding does not necessarily result in higher student achievement, said Drew Klein of Americans for Prosperity. Cost should not be seen as a measure of quality, he said.

Also in the bill, lawmakers eliminated the forward-funding law that required the Legislature and governor set state supplemental aid to schools more than one year in advance. Lawmakers have violated that on a regular basis in recent years. Branstad said he understands why lawmakers want to see the Revenue Estimating Conference projections in March before setting the school funding beyond the next school year.

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