School Budget Set Despite Uncertainty Over State Aid

The Glenwood Board of Education approved its 2015-16 school district budget Monday, April 13, despite not having a firm commitment from the Iowa Legislature on how much supplemental aid the state will be allotting.

Following a public hearing, the board voted 5-0 to approve the district’s $40 million budget. The school district’s proposed budget for next year shows a net decrease of more than $7 million from the 2014-2015 re-estimated budget amount. That nearly 15-percent decrease means the district’s property tax rate will go down to 13.73162 per $1,000 taxable valuation. The tax rate for the current fiscal year is 14.53879.

But the district’s budget estimate comes without a definite figure on the state’s supplemental aid allowable growth rate - the figure used to establish state aid to public school districts.

The Legislature has been deadlocked in a partisan debate on supplemental aid and the allowable growth rates used to calculate it. In lieu of a firm figure, Glenwood allotted a “safe” allowable growth rate of 1.25 percent for the upcoming fiscal year. The Democrat-controlled Iowa Senate has offered a 4 percent allowable growth rate while the Republican-controlled House is holding firm at 1.25 percent.

The Senate has recently offered to “split the difference” at 2.625, but that offer appears to be dead, according to Glenwood Superintendent Devin Embray.

Embray called the legislative debate “very concerning.”

“We’re like every district,” he said. “We’re checking our numbers at the kindergarten level, obviously with our senior class graduating we’ll have a small class graduating, but we’re always concerned with our incoming kindergarten. Right now, our numbers look stable but they could be down.”

Embray said Glenwood is a very fortunate district in that its finances have “a healthy balance” to meet the needs of programs and staff. But settling state supplemental funding is crucial to maintaining that balancing act and not having to make difficult cuts.

“Right now, we don’t have to, but it is a concern,” Embray said of possible budget cuts if a growth rate deal cannot be hatched, “There’s a lot of districts around us that are not as fortunate as we are in terms of unspent balances but it doesn’t take much to get to that point.”

If a deal cannot be reached, the state will hold steady at a “zero” allowable growth rate. A zero allowable growth rate would put Glenwood and many state school districts on a budget guarantee – meaning they would operate next year on the current year’s budget – that would inevitably increase district property taxes to cover the shortfall.

“That’s concerning,” Embray said. “At the legislative level, if it does come back as zero, 80 percent of the state’s schools will be on the budget guarantee which will increase property taxes. And I don’t think the average person  understands it isn’t the school increasing property taxes, it’s the state.”

Embray called the Senate’s 2.625 offer on allowable growth a healthy compromise he thinks is “doable” if only both sides of the legislature would look at the big picture of educational funding.

“We know there’s only so much to go around,” Embray said. “We get that and understand that. But a little bit (of allowable growth) keeps a lot of districts from increased property taxes. The fact it could go to zero means to me there are a lot of adults who couldn’t share their toys in the sandbox. That’s very frustrating.”