It's hard to find anything wrong with a recent administrative rule change enacted by the State Board of Education that now requires seat belts on all new school buses purchased after October 1, 2019. Of course at the same time there wasn't anything preventing Iowa schools from doing just that prior to the change in rule. But as this proposal began to go through the vetting process and the public momentum for seat belts began to grow, many school districts decided to accelerate purchasing plans and get new buses on order prior to the change in rule. That is because the estimated cost of seat belts on new bus units is expected to increase the cost by roughly $8,000. We weren't in the market for a new bus this year anyway, since we purchased new buses the last two years in a row (and typically we only purchase every other year). But considering our last 78 passenger unit came in at $82,252 I can understand why a 10% cost increase would force some districts' hand to move up their timeline. Nonetheless, when we purchase our next school bus we'll happily pay the upcharge for seat belts because it is the safe thing to do.
Oftentimes in schools new mandates are introduced without regard for how the district is going to pay for them. Perhaps the school bus seat belt mandate is a poor example. After all, most schools purchase school buses from either their SAVE or PPEL fund. During the last legislative session our lawmakers took steps to extend the sunset of the SAVE to 2051. For that we are thankful. Maybe their intent here was that this extension would make it more likely schools could handle the costs associated with seat belts in school buses. But at the same time, most school districts have been (or will be) leveraging SAVE funds for infrastructure projects. Case in point: that is how we are paying for our Phase III elementary renovation project. Once we finish that we'll start having a conversation about using some of those funds for Phase IV, which will be the renovation of the high school. Indeed there are a number of strains on that fund outside school buses and infrastructure projects. That is how we fund our connected learning project, purchase vans for the school, pay for emergency repairs that come up over the course of the year. Buy new desks for classrooms. You see, there is always going to be something.
Maybe this is a poor example because generally we are talking about unfunded mandates that impact the operating fund. The most recent mandate was a rule that high school students have a credit of financial literacy as a requirement for graduation. Kind of like the seat belt rule, who is going to say that is a bad idea? We've all heard horror stories of young people going off to college and getting ensnared in a credit card scheme that ultimately creates an unnecessary and quite burdensome debt load for young people. That was the litmus for this requirement. Again, this is one in which we were happy to comply with, and had made plans to begin requiring it absent the change in law. (Kind of like the seat belt rule, there was nothing preventing schools from doing this in the first place.)
Look, I'm not saying any of these things are bad ideas. Quite the contrary. They are great ideas and ones that no one can argue with. The fact of the matter is, the local public school is the one place where we can properly address many of these issues. Getting our students to and from schools safely is of primary concern. We just hope that more time is spent considering the fiscal impact of these decisions. And it is just too easy to say that our low supplemental state aid will be adequate, or that we moved the sunset of the SAVE.
Oftentimes in schools new mandates are introduced without regard for how the district is going to pay for them. Perhaps the school bus seat belt mandate is a poor example. After all, most schools purchase school buses from either their SAVE or PPEL fund. During the last legislative session our lawmakers took steps to extend the sunset of the SAVE to 2051. For that we are thankful. Maybe their intent here was that this extension would make it more likely schools could handle the costs associated with seat belts in school buses. But at the same time, most school districts have been (or will be) leveraging SAVE funds for infrastructure projects. Case in point: that is how we are paying for our Phase III elementary renovation project. Once we finish that we'll start having a conversation about using some of those funds for Phase IV, which will be the renovation of the high school. Indeed there are a number of strains on that fund outside school buses and infrastructure projects. That is how we fund our connected learning project, purchase vans for the school, pay for emergency repairs that come up over the course of the year. Buy new desks for classrooms. You see, there is always going to be something.
Maybe this is a poor example because generally we are talking about unfunded mandates that impact the operating fund. The most recent mandate was a rule that high school students have a credit of financial literacy as a requirement for graduation. Kind of like the seat belt rule, who is going to say that is a bad idea? We've all heard horror stories of young people going off to college and getting ensnared in a credit card scheme that ultimately creates an unnecessary and quite burdensome debt load for young people. That was the litmus for this requirement. Again, this is one in which we were happy to comply with, and had made plans to begin requiring it absent the change in law. (Kind of like the seat belt rule, there was nothing preventing schools from doing this in the first place.)
Look, I'm not saying any of these things are bad ideas. Quite the contrary. They are great ideas and ones that no one can argue with. The fact of the matter is, the local public school is the one place where we can properly address many of these issues. Getting our students to and from schools safely is of primary concern. We just hope that more time is spent considering the fiscal impact of these decisions. And it is just too easy to say that our low supplemental state aid will be adequate, or that we moved the sunset of the SAVE.
I agree with you 100%. In my nearly 20 years as a superintendent, there have been countless "unfunded mandates" that have continued to put a strain on school districts. These mandates, in conjunction with districts who have declining enrollment and basically no increase in the district cost per pupil (State Supplemental Aid) have made focusing on teaching and learning to "survival mode" for way too many districts.
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