Growing enrollment leads to stability in Cedar Rapids schools’ budget

CEDAR RAPIDS — The Cedar Rapids Community School District is seeing an increase in the number of students enrolled — a reversal of more than a decadelong trend that will have a positive impact on the upcoming budget and a decrease in the proposed property tax rate.

K-12 enrollment in Cedar Rapids schools grew by 180 students this academic year — from 15,959 during the 2022-23 school year to 16,139 this school year — creating more revenue for the district through state per-pupil funding.

Karla Hogan, Cedar Rapids schools’ chief financial officer, attributes the increasing enrollment to the district’s innovative programming, including a full-day preschool and endeavors to eliminate racial achievement gaps and improve college and career pathways.

In Iowa, enrollment is a driving factor of how much funding state funding a district receives. The State Supplemental Aid — the amount of funding provided per-pupil — is $7,598 under the rate that will apply. This represents the majority of each district’s general fund, 80 percent of which pays salaries, and represents roughly $111 million in revenue for Cedar Rapids schools this year.

State aid runs a fiscal year behind. The district's student count in October 2023 will be used to determine funding for the fiscal 2025 budget, which begins July 1.

A public hearing on the proposed budget is scheduled for 5:30 p.m. April 8 at the Educational Leadership and Support Center, 2500 Edgewood Rd. NW, Cedar Rapids. The school board is expected to vote on the proposed budget April 22.

Under the proposed budget, property owners in the district would pay a property tax levy rate of $13.90 per $1,000 of taxable valuation, a decrease of about 83 cents from the current property tax rate. For a homeowner with a $200,000 home, the property tax bill for schools would be $1,288 per year, or $107.33 a month.

The decrease in the proposed levy largely is attributed to the decrease in the amount being levied for the management and cash reserve funds.

The management fund — which pays for insurance like liability, property casualty, workers’ compensation, unemployment and voluntary retirement incentive program — is decreasing $2 million to $13 million. Hogan said this is because the district’s property casualty insurance didn’t increase as much last year as district officials thought it would.

School districts are authorized to levy a cash reserve to maintain or raise the amount in their reserve. District cash reserve levy amounts are limited to no more than 20 percent of the school district’s general fund expenditures. For the Cedar Rapids school district, this maximum for fiscal 2025 is about $8.2 million.

The district’s total expenditures in fiscal 2025 are planned to be $439 million. This is about a 2.7 percent decrease from $451 million from the current fiscal year.

The budget decrease largely is attributed to the end of federal pandemic relief dollars — the American Rescue Plan Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief — which expires in September. Of the about $50 million the district received in ESSER funding, only about $100,000 remains.

ESSER funds have been used to pay staff salaries, purchase new curriculum and mitigate learning loss due to the extended and repeated school closures and remote learning during the height of the pandemic.

Expenditures are also decreasing because construction of the district’s newest elementary school is almost complete, Hogan said. The elementary school, named Trailside, under construction at 2630 B Ave. NE, will replace Arthur and Garfield elementary schools this fall as part of the district’s facility master plan.

The money for construction and paying off revenue bonds comes from an existing 1 percent statewide sales tax — called SAVE, or Secure an Advanced Vision for Education — that funds school infrastructure projects.

As ESSER funding expires, the school district will have to resort to state funding to maintain operations of its full-day preschool program called Truman Early Learning Center.

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The state currently funds preschool at half the usual per-pupil rate because preschoolers typically are in centers only part of the day. But since it opened in the fall of 2022, Truman has been funded with ESSER dollars. The district has been saving those state funds for preschool this year and next to continue budgeting for full-day programming for the 2024-25 school year, Hogan said.

Hogan said school leaders continue to advocate for state lawmakers to fully fund 4-year-old preschool.

The fiscal stability in the Cedar Rapids Community School District is in stark contrast to other school districts around the state.

The largest school district in Iowa — Des Moines Public Schools — is cutting a whopping $14 million from its budget next year. The Iowa City school board last month voted to close an elementary school as a part of $5.5 million in cuts over the next two years. And the Linn-Mar Community School District is laying off 50 staff at the end of the year as part of $2.5 million in budget cuts.

The cost of health insurance for Cedar Rapids school district staff is increasing by about 13.5 percent. Like other school districts in Eastern Iowa, Cedar Rapids is restructuring the health insurance plans offered to employees to contain costs for the district and staff, Hogan said. The district also is increasing its contributions an additional $1.2 million next fiscal year to assist employees with rising health care costs, she said.

While last year the Cedar Rapids Community School District cut $2 million from its spending plan, there are no cuts expected for this year.

Last year, the cuts — less than 1 percent of the districts budget — were made by reconsidering if the district was getting the best value for a cost of product or service. The budget cuts did not affect staffing or student programming.

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