Schools face budget deadline with state aid unknown

DES MOINES - The consequences of the Legislature's education funding impasse are taking shape as school districts certify their budgets and shape their programs and staffs for the 2015-16 school year.

The split-control Legislature begins the 14th week and the 54th day of session work Monday no closer to agreement on K-12 school funding for the next two fiscal years than they were when they arrived Jan. 12 at the Statehouse.

Legislative Republicans and Gov. Terry Branstad are holding firm on the 1.25 percent increase in supplemental state aid to schools that they believe the state can afford in fiscal 2016.

'We're not returning to the days where we over promise and under deliver,” said House Speaker Kraig Paulsen, R-Hiawatha.

Legislative Democrats started the process last session - the time that state law required the decision to be made - calling for a 6 percent boost in state aid to schools for fiscal 2016, but they scaled back the request to 4 percent this year. They recently offered to 'meet in the middle” at 2.625 percent in hopes of letting schools know how much state money they could expect before Wednesday, when they are required by law to certify their budgets for the next school year.

'We came down lower than we think is wise,” said Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal, D-Council Bluffs. He accused Republicans of setting up artificial spending restrictions when nonpartisan projections indicate lawmakers have $7.42 billion available to budget in fiscal 2016 under the state's 99 percent spending limitation law.

Republicans say current year state spending totals $6.99 billion and state revenue projections indicate tax collections will total $7.176 billion, so that is the budget ceiling to avoid spending more than the state takes in. They also refuse to use $319 million in surplus money to fund commitments made to property tax relief of $142 million or the extra $50 million for education reform, which would be using one-time money for ongoing expenses.

Gronstal said it doesn't make sense to have $319 million in surplus funds beyond the $700 million in reserve by law sit idle while 'starving local schools, taking away opportunities for kids and doing away with programs that help kids want to stay in school.”

Paulsen countered that Democrats 'want a whole bunch of press about education and how they're the saviors of whatever they're looking for there, and this is the way they get it, by delaying it rather than resolving it.”

Both sides accuse the other of playing politics, but Senate Republican leader Bill Dix of Shell Rock said the end result for schools if no deal is reached is that they will get zero change for fiscal 2016 as some districts face declining enrollments and all face rising costs. Once they resolve the education piece, lawmakers face a projected $206 million increase in Medicaid costs to deal with in finalizing a spending plan.

Branstad lands in the middle of the budget dispute having offered a $7.34 billion spending proposal in January that included a 1.25 percent boost in supplemental state aid for K-12 schools as part of a $100 million boost for education and required $129 million of the state's surplus to help cover the property tax and school reform commitments.