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Tuesday, December 07, 2010

Ind. Gov't. - "School funding hard to figure: FWCS’ budget next year only 54 percent of Indy’s"

In this Dec. 5, 2010 story in the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, reporter Angela Mapes Turner makes a valiant effort to explain school funding. A sample:

As districts lose students, they also lose funding, but not right away; there’s a cushion built in so schools can gradually adjust to declining budgets, Kenley said.

The formula used for the 2009 two-year state budget brought the two districts closer to what Fort Wayne district officials thought was equitable funding. But a new calculation in the formula, added during the final hours of the budget-crafting session, resulted in $238 million in additional funding for a majority of school districts.

The new calculation resulted in Indianapolis being the biggest recipient of the additional money – $12.3 million in 2010 and $19.1 million in 2011, according to the Legislative Services Agency. The other large urban district, Gary, received $9.6 million for 2011. Fort Wayne schools received none of the grants, nor did about a quarter of the state’s school districts this year.

[Sen. Luke Kenley, R-Noblesville, chairman of the state budget and the Senate Appropriations committees and the legislature’s budget architect], among the legislative leaders who negotiated the final budget, said he gave in to those calling for so-called “restoration grants” in the spirit of moving the process forward. But he said the grants were driven by Indianapolis lawmakers.

“I felt that it had an unfair element in it,” he said.

So did Fort Wayne Community Schools, which has been decrying the grants ever since. The 2009 budget process made the funding process more equitable, district spokeswoman Krista Stockman said, only to include a windfall for certain districts in the end.

“We’re underfunded. We get brought up,” she said. “Other districts get more. Well, then we’re underfunded again.”

Posted by Marcia Oddi on December 7, 2010 10:14 AM
Posted to Indiana Government