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1.75% K-12 funding increase panned by Iowa education advocates
Iowa Senate Republicans’ proposal is less than the 2 percent pitched last month by Gov. Kim Reynolds
Feb. 3, 2026 4:20 pm
The Gazette offers audio versions of articles using Instaread. Some words may be mispronounced.
DES MOINES — Public schools across Iowa will struggle to pay their bills if the state’s general funding for K-12 schools increases by just 1.75 percent — as proposed by Republican lawmakers — education advocates warned Tuesday during a legislative hearing.
Iowa Senate Republicans on Tuesday advanced legislation that would increase the state’s general K-12 school funding level for the next school year by 1.75 percent.
During a legislative hearing on the proposal, education advocates called the funding level “wholly” and “pitifully” inadequate and warned that it could lead to difficult budget decisions for school districts as state general funding is outpaced by inflation.
“I know that you say, ‘Oh, we’re funding you.’ You’re not. You really are not,” said Rachella Dravis, a Fort Madison school board member who traveled to Des Moines to speak during public testimony on the bill Tuesday.
Kylie Spies, a lobbyist for the progressive advocacy group Common Good Iowa, said the proposal if approved would be the eighth year in the last 10 in which state general funding for K-12 education lagged inflation.
Iowa Sen. Herman Quirmbach, a Democrat from Ames, criticized the proposal and declined to support advancing it. Republican Sens. Lynn Evans of Aurelia and Tim Kraayenbrink of Fort Dodge signed off on advancing the bill to the full Senate Education Committee, where it will be considered Wednesday.
Evans and Kraayenbrink added that the proposal is a starting point in budget negotiations between majority Republicans in the Senate and House, and Gov. Kim Reynolds.
In her budget proposal, published early last month, Reynolds proposed a 2 percent increase in general K-12 school funding. House Republicans have not yet proposed a funding level.
“It’s part of the process,” Kraayenbrink said. “Hopefully we can do the best we can do.”
From 1973, when the current public school funding formula was created, until 2010, general state funding to K-12 public schools increased by an annual average of 5 percent. Since Republicans regained at least partial control of the state lawmaking process in 2011, that annual increase has averaged 2.1 percent.
Last year, the funding increased 3 percent.
“(A funding increase of) 1.75 percent just does not mean new money for a lot of districts,” Michelle Johnson, a lobbyist for the Iowa Association of School Boards, said during Tuesday’s legislative hearing. “It’s hard to keep up with the cost of inflation, just the cost of doing business in a school district, utilities and then insurance costs go way up every year. So a lot of this new money, if we can get it, is eaten up by those costs.”
Senate Republicans’ legislation, Senate Study Bill 3100, also contains other school funding mechanisms, including:
- State funding to prevent any local property tax increases that would have resulted from schools being eligible for the state’s budget guarantee, which guarantees school districts receive at least 101 percent of their previous year’s funding and is funded by local property taxes. Last year’s state funding increase of 3 percent qualified 157 school districts for the budget guarantee at a total cost of $24.3 million in property taxes. Margaret Buckton, a lobbyist for Rural Schools Advocates of Iowa, calculated that at a 1.75 percent increase, 208 districts would be on the guarantee at a cost of $47.7 million.
- An extra $5 in per pupil funding to address district-to-district inequities caused by the state’s complex school funding formula.
- A provision that would allow school districts to use the larger of either the base or adjusted enrollment — which would be determined in early February — for their enrollment figures for funding purposes.
Iowa law requires K-12 education funding to be set by the Legislature within the first 30 days of the legislative session, which started this year on Jan. 12. There is no punishment mechanism in the state law.
Comments: (515) 355-1300, erin.murphy@thegazette.com
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