The holiday’s over. It’s back to school – and school budgets.
Review: The last column covered basics on big-ticket income. The Iowa formula for “Foundation Aid” and “Instructional Support” limit us to 110 percent of $4030 times the number of students in our District (10,500) – about $46 million. Source: local property taxes and state funds.
Even if we were willing to raise property taxes we can’t. It’s against the law.
There are a couple exceptions:
It shows we had total income of $61 not $46 million. So where did the extra come from? A variety of sources. Even the audited summary lists 60 categories.
Some are substantial. A state program called “Phase II” is $837,000. The State “technology” funding bought us $606,000 worth of computers and related equipment.
Others are smaller. A federal childcare food program contributed $1800.
Add them up and it’s nothing to sneeze at. But we can only use the money for the purposes designated. Few help pay teachers’ salaries.
Our school lunch program is like a “subsidiary.”
If a Girl Scout sells $50 worth of cookies that’s not exactly “income” to her family.
Lunch money is similar: a separate account.
We sell meal tickets and get about $1 million in federal funding and food, but by the time we buy groceries and pay personnel it’s a wash.
Most of us keep a checkbook balance. If we spent every dime we’d have to borrow money for emergencies. The School District also keeps a balance. Instead of having to pay interest (for which we hadn’t budgeted, and then have to cut programs even more) we had an extra $324,000 of interest income!
We get tuition income when other districts’ students attend our schools (such as special education or open enrollment). The controversial student “fees” generated another $73,000.
The “Phase II” mentioned earlier is part of the Iowa Educational Excellence Program. It has a “Phase III” also. Like our big-ticket income, both are enrollment-based: steady enrollment, no increase. Together they contribute about $1.5 million to the District. And that money does go to teachers – for professional development. It helps support our boast of having the best, and best-paid faculty in the state. (Albeit in a town with a high cost of living.)
Voluntary contributions and grants don’t add to the District budget as such. But they can improve schools. There’s an Iowa City Community School District Foundation. Parents, business community, and others also support the Music Auxiliary, Athletic Boosters, and numerous special fund drives. The City High auditorium project alone involves $250,000 in private funds.
Grants from government and foundations require some central coordination. And paying employees after grants run out can create problems.
But there’s money out there free for the taking by any teacher, administrator, or parent with the time, ability and luck to get it. Weber recently got $7500.
(You’ll have to ask someone else why, as a “cost saving measure,” a prior Board chose not to replace the district’s grant writer.)
We also have assets. Our land and buildings’ replacement value is about $130 million. What we would otherwise pay to rent school rooms (or the “opportunity cost” – our failure to earn what $130 million in mutual funds might produce) represents another kind of “income.”
Summary: We have some options for increasing income, but not by much. State law limits not only State funding but what we’re permitted to raise from local property taxes. Income from grants is almost always designated for specific federal or state purposes.
There are no legal limits to what District residents can contribute, or what we can obtain from foundation grants.
But there are limits, and a downside, to those sources, too.
What did we do with all this money? That’s for next time.
Nicholas Johnson is a member of the Iowa City School
Board.