It is time for my annual plea for the legislature to set the SSA rate for school budgets! Unfortunately, setting this important variable within the prescribed time has been more of an anomaly than the norm. I can remember a time where the law required the rate to be set for the 'out year' (in this case fiscal year 26) within the 30 day timeframe (more about how the 30 day timeframe is defined can be found in the following paragraph). Back in the day, meeting this deadline meant schools had an approximate 18 month window for planning purposes. When the law changed, it reduced that planning period to 6 months. FY 25 begins on July 1, and this important variable is still unknown. You can be assured that school districts will be held accountable if they miss budgetary deadlines. But even though Iowa Code says 30 days, there is no statutory accountability measure if the legislature misses the deadline. To further complicate the matter, intermediary reporting measures were added to the process (beginning this year) in order to improve public accountability for taxing purposes. That's fine, but it is difficult to meet the benchmark without the variables that are needed to determine tax rates.
Supplemental State Aid (SSA) is the percentage by which the state cost per pupil grows annually. In her Condition of the State address, Governor Reynolds proposed a 2.5% increase in the state cost per pupil, or $191. The math works out to a roughly $224,054 increase in Hudson's regular program district cost. The trouble is, this proposal hasn't yet been translated into law. The legislature has to pass a bill out of both chambers and the governor needs to sign it. The law on the books requires this matter be settled within 30 days of the governor releasing her budget proposals. That deadline is this week. Now, a shell bill was introduced earlier last week, but it didn't contain a number; but merely a commitment that SSA would be addressed. Instead of focusing on pressing issues like this, they are working on some other things: like whether or not public school districts should be mandated to sing all four verses of the National Anthem on special occasions.
I would argue settling SSA should be the focus right now, as well as determining how and if the governor's $50,000 starting salary proposal is going to come to fruition. Until we have those issues settled, it is challenging to make budgeting and staffing decisions for the next school year. Furthermore, as mentioned above, during the last legislative session an additional hurdle was added to the budget process. Specifically, taxing authorities like school districts are required to hold an additional public hearing on proposed tax rates. Those rates need to be certified with the county auditor by March 15. I would opine it is difficult to propose tax rates without knowing what SSA is going to be, particularly since they are directly related to one another. A few weeks ago, you may recall that I discussed the budget process and a proposed tax rate increase. It should have been lost on no one that a rate wasn't included in this discussion. Why? Because we won't know that proposed rate for certain until SSA is set. Until that number is known we are left with an academic exercise in speculation.
The other item where additional clarity would helpful is the proposal to boost teacher wages. As you heard, the governor proposes a base salary of $50,000 for beginning teachers. This really is great news and one that has a lot of support all across the state. But, we have many questions about the mechanics of how this will work, and whether or not this can be sustained in the long term. It sounds like those very conversations are occurring in the legislature, which is absolutely necessary. At the same time though, the clock is ticking.
Again, we are in budget season. Since approximately 80% of our general fund expenditures are accounted for in personnel, knowing the details of how this proposal will work is important. Now couple that with unknown SSA. Those are some pretty important variables that, if known, would enable us to paint an accurate budget picture. Absent those variables, budgets will have to be developed with a good dose of conjecture.
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