Task force kicks off, billions for education at stake

The funding formula hasn't been overhauled in decades, and changing it could affect North Carolina public schools for decades more.

Posted 6:37 p.m. Nov 1, 2017 — Updated 11:11 p.m. Nov 1, 2017

Travis Fain

RALEIGH, N.C. — State leaders looking to overhaul the way North Carolina divvies up billions of dollars for local schools got to work on the issue Wednesday.

This task force of legislators started by hearing how the system works now and going over a lengthy 2016 report by the General Assembly's research arm that describes the current system as outdated, overly complicated and often out of whack with what schools and students need.

Following are some of the findings:

The way North Carolina pays teachers, based on experience, education and credentials, favors wealthy counties because more experienced, better-educated teachers tend to concentrate in wealthier school districts.
The state's funding formula allocates extra money to systems to help cover the higher costs of educating disabled students, but it doesn't differentiate enough between different types of disabilities, despite the fact that students with some disabilities cost significantly more to teach than others.
Charter schools aren't required to provide transportation, but they get state funding for it. Roughly half of all charter schools get funding for services they don't provide.

The General Assembly's Joint Legislative Task Force on Education Finance Reform is tasked with finding a new funding model for the state and with deciding just how much it should cost, per student, to run public schools in North Carolina. The group is slated to recommend changes to the General Assembly in October 2018, but at least one member indicated the matter make take longer than that.

The funding formula hasn't been overhauled in decades, and changing it could affect North Carolina public schools for decades more.

Education funding formulas are just one issue of many that state leaders are debating when it comes to education, but with billions of dollars involved, it's likely to be one of the more heavily lobbied issues in Raleigh.

State Sen. Harry Brown, R-Onslow, who chairs the Senate's budget-writing committee, told fellow task force members to remember that not every county can afford to put on a full-court press at the statehouse.

"The wealthy counties can afford the lobbyists," said Brown, "and you're going to get lobbied like you've never seen. And there will be winners and losers no matter how this turns out."

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