Branstad wants to ease mandates on K-12 public schools

Governor-elect Terry Branstad said Monday he is looking at ways to ease mandates on local schools and require parents who can afford it to pay a share of preschool costs, but beyond that the state's tight budget situation might allow few options to boost spending for Iowa's 359 K-12 public school districts.

Branstad said fiscal 2012 might be a year where budget areas that maintain status quo funding would be fortunate.

“With the limited resources we have we'll have to look at what's the art of the possible,” Branstad told reporters following a budget briefing on school funding.

He said this year promising stability and predictability might be the best he can offer for certain, pledging not to over-extend like Gov. Chet Culver and majority Democrats in the Legislature did in the past only to be forced to come back with a 10 percent across-the-board cut in October 2009 that sent school officials and property taxpayers scrambling.

“We have more obligations than we have resources at this point in time,” said Branstad, who noted he did not make any promises during the campaign to boost “allowable growth” for base K-12 school budgets next fiscal year. “We're going to have to make some tough decisions and it's not going to be easy.”

State aid to public schools currently tops $2.5 billion annually and budget-makers would have to come up with about $216 million that was used during the current fiscal year to cover money used from property tax, federal and other one-time sources to finance operations. About $1.3 billion in K-12 financing comes from property taxpayers through the uniform levy and another 12.5 percent paid into the school aid formula annually, said Branstad's budget director David Roederer.

Culver and lawmakers decided in 2009 to roll “categorical” funding for teacher pay, professional development and early intervention initiatives into the state aid formula, but Branstad said those funding areas may have to be revisited given the new state budgeting realities.

He also advocated giving schools more flexibility in dealing with mandated activities, such as teacher CPR and requiring a nurse, librarian and guidance counselor that carry costs. He also supported continuing pre-school programs provided by 87 percent of Iowa school districts, but apply a “means” test on a sliding scale whereby parents who can afford to pay all or part of the cost would do so rather than having taxpayers fund the entire cost.

House Speaker-elect Kraig Paulsen, R-Hiawatha, has said his 60-member caucus favors giving zero new state dollars to fund “allowable growth” but trying to restore the $216 million that was shifted to property taxpayers in the current fiscal year. Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal, D-Council Bluffs, agrees that the state should work to “backfill” the money that was underfunding in the current budget year but he expected legislative Democrats to be “somewhere above zero” in providing some growth in base state aid for schools.

Schools received a 2 percent “allowable growth” increase in the current fiscal year following three years of 4 percent raises.