High transportation costs, low tax revenues creating school funding inequity

DES MOINES - Disproportionately high transportation costs and low property tax revenues are creating funding inequities among Iowa school districts, state lawmakers acknowledged Monday.

Yet the message that came from school officials was far simpler: Whatever the funding level, it must dispensed in a more timely manner.

Legislators met Monday to discuss the state's per-pupil school funding formula, a mandatory exercise once every five years. The committee will meet again early in the upcoming legislative session, at which time it will focus on addressing drivers of school funding inequity, including districts that pay significantly more on transportation and those that have low property tax revenues.

But the thrust of the message coming from the school officials who addressed the committee Monday was that whatever funding levels and formulas the state decides on, it needs to be determined on time.

The state has missed its deadline for determining state funding in each of the past four years.

'Our school districts have dealt with uncertainty and underfunding for the last few years, and in order to be able to do what we know we need to do for students, we need to have funding,” said Mary Jane Cobb, executive director of the Iowa State Education Association.

Schools say uncertainty over future funding causes stress on the budgeting process and sometimes leads to temporary layoffs.

'It's like putting together a jigsaw puzzle in the dark,” said Jeff Anderson, president of the Iowa Association of School Boards. 'It is a guess.”

Disagreements in the Iowa Legislature over funding levels and the process have delayed the process in previous years.

This year, lawmakers from both parties have indicated they hope to set school funding levels early in the session. Gov. Terry Branstad said Monday he plans to make his recommendation in his annual State of the State address in January.

Lawmakers also plan to meet early in the session with the hopes of making recommendations on the per-pupil funding formula to the Legislature.

On Monday, they identified transportation budgets and property tax revenues as two of the most critical areas to address.

Districts with larger transportation budgets, including rural districts that cover a wide geographical area, are at a disadvantage because they spend, as a percentage, more of their state funding on gas and buses than other districts.

Districts with low property values have to tax at higher rates to generate the same amount of local property tax revenue as those districts with higher property values. In some cases, such as recently in Sioux City, voters have rejected attempts to generate more revenue by raising taxes.

Any solutions to those problems are likely to require additional state funding.

'There's so many unknowns from a budgetary standpoint yet of where the money is going to come from and what we can afford, what we can't afford,” said Rep. Ron Jorgensen, R-Sioux City, a committee co-chairman.

Rep. Cindy Winckler, D-Davenport, said she hopes any funding solution to the financing formula is not perceived by state lawmakers as a substitute for general education funding increases.

'Can't happen. It's not a solution,” Winckler said. 'But I remain optimistic.”