Local school districts denounce Branstad’s proposed funding level

School officials from Cedar Rapids and Iowa City this week denounced Gov. Terry Branstad's proposed funding level for Iowa schools, saying it would result in staffing and programming cuts if enacted.

The governor on Tuesday proposed a 1.25 percent increase in state supplemental aid to K-12 schools in the 2015-16 school year.

That represents an increase of $80 - to $6,446 from $6,366 - in the state's cost per pupil figure, which helps determine state funding to schools.

Schools hope for an increase of 6 percent, or about $382 in additional money per pupil.

State legislators must decide on which funding level to approve.

'The 1.25 is very disappointing,” said Chris Lynch, Iowa City school board president. 'It's grossly insufficient, and I just hope it's the starting point for negotiations.”

David Benson, superintendent of the Cedar Rapids Community School District, called the governor's proposed increase a 'ridiculous number.”

'That is wholly inadequate,” Benson said. 'We are counting on the Legislature to address school finance in a significantly larger way.”

To arrive at the state's regular program funding for a school district, the cost per pupil figure is multiplied by a district's certified enrollment, a weighted count of students. The resulting total usually makes up a significant portion of a district's budget - in Cedar Rapids' case, about $107 million this year of a total budget of $200 million, or roughly 54 percent.

State supplemental aid increases in recent years have usually been either 2 percent or 4 percent, according to a report from the nonpartisan Legislative Services Agency. For the 2011-12 school year, legislators passed a 0 percent increase, maintaining funding levels from the year before.

Benson said Cedar Rapids schools would have to make staffing cuts if Branstad's proposal holds.

'Our single biggest expense is personnel costs, and at that kind of level we would be reducing personnel,” he said.

Joe Crozier, chief administrator of the Grant Wood Area Education Agency, said local education agencies need annual funding increases of 3 or 4 percent just to keep up with increases in employee salaries and benefits negotiated through collective bargaining.

'When you go below that, you're talking about no, there won't be the same services for kids,” Crozier said at a meeting of The Gazette's editorial board.

Tuyet Dorau, another Iowa City school board member, said the Iowa City district still is feeling the effects of previous years with low increases.

'We're still playing catchup,” she said. 'When the governor continues to propose inadequate funding for us, those are things that hit the classroom, those are things that affect our kids.”

The Iowa City district planned its budget for next school year based on a projected funding increase of 2 percent, chief financial officer Craig Hansel said. Steve Graham, the business services director of the Cedar Rapids district, said he had not made any assumptions about state aid in planning that district's budget.