Schools

Did Hopkins Receive a Big Boost in School Funding?

Contradictory figures sow confusion.

Republicans who oppose voter-approved tax increases accuse school districts of pleading poverty without justification. School groups counter that funding is actually falling behind inflation.

So who’s correct and how does Hopkins fit in? The answer is complex.

The debate centers on dueling per-pupil funding figures. Republicans estimate that the average school district will see $488 more per student this year, while the Minnesota Department of Education in July pegged the figure at $230 more per student through the 2012-2013 school year.

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In education parlance, “per-pupil funding” often refers to a specific type of money: state funding given to schools based on student enrollment. This basic amount has hovered in the $6,000 range since 2008.

You may have even read in the news following the state shutdown that legislators agreed to give schools $50 more per student in 2011-2012 and another $50 per student in 2012-2013 to cover borrowing costs resulting from delayed state payments. That’s quite a bit less than either the Republican or Department of Education figures.

Find out what's happening in Hopkinswith free, real-time updates from Patch.

But that’s not the only pot of money those groups examined. Schools get other money from the state for special education, facilities, transportation, limited English proficiency and other reasons.

They also raise money locally through property taxes and get money from other outside sources, such as the federal government and grants.

An exact breakdown of the various sources isn’t yet available for the 2011-2012 school year. But for 2010-2011, the breakdown looked like this:

  • State: $52.6 million (63 percent)
  • Local: $15.4 million (19 percent)
  • Federal: $8.9 million (11 percent)
  • Other: $6.2 million (7 percent)

So when Republicans such as state Rep. Pat Garofalo (R-Farmington), chairman of the House Education Finance Committee, criticize schools for complaining about revenue, they’re not just talking about state money under the Legislature's control. They’re talking about the entire funding package.

When you add it all up and compare total revenue per pupil from this school year to the last, the results look like this:


2010-2011 2011-2012 Difference Percent change Total revenue $81.6 million $82.8 million $1.1 million 1.4 percent Total students 7,632 7,496 -136 -1.8 percent Per pupil $10,696 $11,040 344 3.2 percent

SOURCE:

 

The result is $344 more per student for 2011-2012. In the 2012-2013 school year, that would grow to $446 more over 2010-2011—at least assuming student enrollment doesn't continue to fall and revenue projections hold true, both dubious assumptions. Easy, right?

Not really. As a MinnPost article explained, some of these costs were already scheduled to increase in order to cover inflation:

Under state law, special education reimbursement has an annual cost of living increase (which is actually far less than the actual increase), for example.

And other segments of the funding stream adjust automatically as well — some according to the amount of, ahem, base funding allocated to schools. Compensatory aid, the money used to compensate districts with concentrations of impoverished kids, adjusts along with the pot of money we think of as basic “tuition” dollars.

So Republicans are comparing total dollars from year to year, while the Department of Education uses so-called “base-over-base” comparisons that factor in new money but not these cost-of-living adjustments.

Using the Department of Education's process results in a $194-per-pupil increase for Hopkins through the 2012-2013 school year—$100 of which is the above-mentioned extra money intended to cover borrowing costs resulting from delayed state payments.

Proponents of further school funding say even that doesn’t account for the full cost of inflation. While total per pupil funding grew nearly a third between 2003 and 2011, Department of Education data shows that purchasing power fell by 2.4 percent over that same period.

In the end, both numbers are accurate. But both leave unanswered policy questions that only you, the voter, can answer: How much money should we give to schools, how should it be divided and where should that money come from?


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