Senate passes 4 percent school funding increase for fiscal 2018

DES MOINES - Democrats who control the Iowa Senate voted 26-24 Tuesday to approve across-the-board and categorical increases of 4 percent in funding to K-12 public school districts for the 2018 fiscal year to comply with the state's forward-funding law ahead of this week's deadline.

Sen. Herman Quirmbach, D-Ames, who managed Senate Files 2092 and 2093 during Senate floor debate, said the 4 percent boost in supplemental state aid would boost per-pupil funding by about $268 beginning July 1, 2017, at an overall cost of about $188.7 million. Currently, the state spends $6,466 per pupil attending Iowa's elementary and secondary public schools.

The estimated cost of increasing categorical funding for things like class-size reductions, professional development and teacher compensation and leadership initiatives would be another $73 million for fiscal 2018 - including another yearly $50 million for school reforms passed in 2013, Quirmbach noted.

'It is long past overdue” that the split-control Legislature and Gov. Terry Branstad reinvest in education to help Iowa's young people meet the challenges of a technology-driven, high-skills world economy, said Quirmbach, who chairs the Senate Education Committee.

Sen. Amy Sinclair, R-Allerton, one of 24 GOP senators to vote against both education funding bills, said Republicans agree with the need to adequately fund education in a timely manner but noted 'the dollar figure is more of the question, noting lawmakers and the governor still have resolved differences over fiscal 2017 school funding levels. A House-Senate conference committee is trying to resolve a dispute whereby the governor supports a 2.45 percent boost in state aid to schools next year, while the GOP-led House favors 2 percent and the Senate 4 percent.

Sinclair, ranking Republican on the Senate Education Committee, expressed concern the 4 percent increase for fiscal 2018 would require using money from the state's general fund ending balance - an approach Branstad vetoed last summer - or possibly result in negative impacts to commitments for commercial property tax relief or reimbursements to local governments for homestead or other property tax credits if the state were to over promise on future spending commitments some 16 months in advance.

During debate on the categorical funding measure, Sen. Brad Zaun, R-Urbandale, offered an amendment to 'take the handcuffs off” school administrators and school boards by allowing them to 'opt out” in deciding how to allocate the money appropriated beyond the base increases in supplemental state aid to K-12 schools. However, the amendment was ruled out of order because state law requires the school forward-funding bills to be a single-subject percentage change established within 30 days of the governor presenting his budget proposal to the Legislature.

In his Jan. 12 Condition of the State and budget message to lawmakers, Branstad did not make a recommendation on how much supplemental state aid that 333 K-12 school districts should receive in the fiscal 2018 budget year even though a state law he once championed requires legislative action by mid-February.

During an interview last month, Branstad said one Legislature cannot bind a future General Assembly so he only would propose a state funding increase of 2.45 percent for fiscal 2017 - which is the second year of the state's current biennial budget plan. He said he proposed two years of forward-funding for education last session, but the split-control Legislature only approved money for schools to operate this fiscal year.

Branstad pushed the forward-funding approach in the 1990s as a way to give school officials sufficient lead time for budgeting purposes, but now calls the concept unrealistic.

'It's not been adhered to, it's not been followed,” Branstad said in January. 'I've recommended that it be changed. I've recommended that we require a two-year budget and that the governor makes recommendations for both years at the first session of the General Assembly, and I did that.”

Quirmbach noted Tuesday that the law on the books has not been altered so Senate Democrats were taking action to abide by the current statute and hoped the Iowa House and governor would follow suit. House Majority Leader Chris Hagenow, R-Windsor Heights, was non-committal regarding how the House would proceed with the two Senate-passed bills during a brief floor exchange Tuesday with House Democratic Leader Mark Smith of Marshalltown.