Last week, the IA House passed along a supplemental aid increase of 2.4%. I thought it might be beneficial to try to explain what that means to Muscatine School District. To truly understand the impact, I think a simplified history of education finance might help.

I’m not an expert in school finance, just a guy who has been part of the system for 40 plus years.
School finance is complicated. Most decisions are driven by Iowa Code. Points to note:
- All Iowa school districts, by law, have to complete their next year’s budget by April 15

- Salaries make up the largest part of every district’s budget
- Every district has their own “salary scale”

Because budgets have to be completed in April everything is “estimated”. Schools don’t know for sure their staffing needs. To make it easier to guesstimate salary costs

districts created a “salary scale”. The scale usually has between 20-30 “steps” and 4-5 columns. Teacher pay is based on experience, the “steps”, and “education”, the columns (renewal credits, Master’s degree, Doctorate etc.). When a district increases “salaries” they increase

the lowest step, and all other changes siphon through. A district will have an increase in salary costs each year just because of the “step”advancement of teachers. Independent auditors of our budget estimate a 3% increase in salary expense each year. Depending how the “salary

scale” is structured some teachers will get more than 3% some less. When I was at Louisa-Muscatine new teachers had a pay freeze for their first 5 years! No raise for five years! My point is, a 2.4% increase in Supplemental Aid is not a 2.4% raise for teachers.

The State process starts by estimating the cost to educate a student. The 2020-21 estimated cost was $7048. State support for a district is determined multiplying $7048 by the number of students the district has. The 2.4% increase will change the $7048 to $7217.

This means Muscatine will get $813,404 of “new money” in 2021-22. We estimate this will not cover our increased expenses. The difference in all districts is made up through property tax dollars. Muscatine could need just over $400,000 of property tax support. At 3% aid the number

wld be just over $200K. The 2.4% increase puts 140 schools across the state in the same position as Muscatine. Taxpayers in those districts will make up the $27.6 million difference. 41 districts will get LESS money this year than last! Preschool funding will be cut by $7 million

Our state is sitting on roughly one BILLION DOLLARS of tax money (reserve, “rainy day”, and current balance). Yet, taxpayers may have to make up a 27.6M dollar shortfall to public education. If a 12 month pandemic is not a “rainy day”, what is? @LofgrenforIowa @cisnerosforiowa