raleigh free press

school funding, a primer: part 1

Published Oct 16, 2007
Views: 81

Ok, since I was invited back, I’ll take this go to respond to some more specific local education concerns/questions from a reader prompted by my last (and first, paradoxically) column. I don’t know if I should be concerned about being typecast, but I’m glad to answer questions of people who are charitable enough to read what I’m writing.

The gist of the questions sent to our benevolent dictator at RFP indicates a common misconception I’ve noticed around town regarding how public education is funded. Perhaps some of these misconceptions are partially borne out of the fact that our area has many transplants from other parts of the country who do school funding quite differently. It will be my goal to help clarify that process and the attendant issues; it may take more than one entry to do so.

In general, North Carolina is somewhat anomalous in how public schools are funded; when compared with other states NC’s public education spending is quite centralized on the state level. For instance, in Wake County, roughly a third of the school budget funding is from local sources, whereas nearly sixty percent comes from the state level. The remaining resources come from the federal government, usually via programs such as Title I. In contrast, for most states, the local school district contributes the great bulk (if not nearly all) of school operational funds. Thus, the state budget and the actions of the NC General Assembly has ultimately more bearing on the availability of funds for schools than does the local allocation of funds, at least proportionally.

Of course, there are myriad local exceptions…the issue of teacher pay, for example. All teachers in NC are paid an identical salary by the state based on their levels of experience and education. Thus, a 6th year kindergarten teacher with a B.A. degree living in Ashe County is paid exactly the same as a 6th year high school business teacher in Raleigh with the same degree of education. However, local school districts (i.e., voter tax bases) can choose to augment this base state pay with salary supplements, which are generally set as a percentage of a teacher’s base state salary. This action is taken for a variety of reasons, usually to lure teaching candidates from elsewhere or to offset a higher standard of living cost for employees. At any rate, the example of teacher pay indicates how, while state money provides the bulk of the funding, local governments can impact the allocation of significant funds enough to create substantial local differences.

So then, how does all of that shake out here in Wake County? The fundamental relationship that governs the allocation of the local bit of our school funding is the relationship between the county commissioners and the Wake school board. At the core of this association is the fact that the commissioners hold the purse strings for the school system; the commissioners decide how much money the schools get from Wake each year, but they can’t micro-manage how the dollars are specifically spent. How does that work? To be simplistic, the school system brings its budget to the commissioners each year, the commissioners decide how much of it they’re going to actually fund (usually there is a substantial difference, though not always), the school board responds with a litany of what things will be cut, under-funded, or eliminated in such a reduced budget, and the buck-passing goes round and round. Most recently, this relationship between commissioners and school board has turned acrimonious as the chair of the commissioners in particular has been prone to use pugnacious language toward school board members. He has also outwardly expressed his reservations in working with new schools chair Rosa Gill, who responded to his puerile excoriation by asserting that, “I don’t know I’ll take too much lecturing. We’re all elected officials. We know our responsibilities.” Indeed. The relationship between the commissioners and school board dictates the funding particulars in Wake County, for better or worse.

For what it’s worth, my solution to this annual carousel would be to give local taxing authority to the school board. This would remove any lack of clarity as to the accountability of funding; voters dissatisfied with the financial decisions of the school system could vote out the offending school board members with the confidence that those board members are the decision making entities controlling funding. As it stands now, obfuscation is the rule as the county commissioners annually pass the buck for funding accountability. Giving taxing authority to the school board removes this layer of covertness and places the responsibility of school funding on the school board leadership. Along with this fundamental change, which I believe would clarify the responsibility and accountability to voters of school funding, I also suggest a two year term for all school board members, as to remain more responsive to the wishes of voters and taxpayers.

The second primary factor dominating funding issues in Wake schools is the explosive population growth of Wake County. The schools have averaged adding more than 7,000 new students each of the last four academic years; the data for this school year won’t be ready until this week’s twentieth day count, but projections put the increase at more than 8,000 students. This fundamental fact dominates discussions of funding in Wake; schools have to pay for staff, buildings, and supplies before anything else. While some have erroneously pointed to immigration (legal or otherwise, depending on one’s personal prejudices) as the primary cause for this increase, the fact remains that it is not the business or duty of the school system to determine a student’s immigration or residency status before enrolling him in school; the public schools are to serve those who show up, not to make a determination of who is or is not a legal resident. That job is allocated to the legal system, not the educational system. The reality that people want to live in Wake County is generally a positive change, but it also creates an inherent strain on infrastructure, not the least of which is the educational infrastructure.

So then, the fact that schools cannot be built fast enough to keep up with the rapid population growth in Wake will continue to dominate financial allocation discussions for the foreseeable future. The reality remains that each of the rapidly increasing number of students in the public system must have—at minimum—a desk, a classroom, a teacher, and a book. These resources cost money, and no amount of ideological grandstanding or politically expedient public school bashing will change that.

At the risk of being even more long winded than expected, this looks like as good a place as any to bifurcate the discussion. Coming next time, in part two, is a discussion of bonds, taxes, impact fees, and where that money all ends up. See you then…