State+Formula+Insights

Three Basic Issues Impacting the State Funding Formula

I believe there are many issues that impact the state formula, but three that affect my district greatly are: the declining student enrollment, the increase of enrollment of special populations, and the impending state shortfall. These three issues will have a huge impact on my district for the years ahead. First of all, my district has had a decline in student population for the last three years. Each year, based on the state formula, we receive less funding, even though we are still forced to provide certain basic programs regardless of our actual enrollment. This school year we are operating with one and a half less teachers than in previous years, but still teaching the same number of core classes. Our electives have been cut and that creates problems in the master schedule. With less funding, supplies are also cut which contributes to a variety of problems including teacher morale. A second problem is our increase in special populations, primarily special education students and ESL students. Even though the formula allows a “weighted” funding, the amount does not really begin to cover the expenses of funding special programs. For a very small district such as ours, the increase of these students creates a huge financial strain. Finally, the impending state shortfall had created a great panic in our district. At our size, the threat of consolidation is very real and if funding is cut by twenty percent (as some have reported), we would be forced to rely on fund balance and eventually close our school and consolidate with another district. In our community, this is a very real concern and a very real possibility unless something changes in terms of state funding.