Public schools funding formula rewrite is no go

BOISE — A highly anticipated rewrite of Idaho’s 25-year-old public school funding formula appears to be dead for the year.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Winder, R-Boise, acknowledged as much Monday, following a 90-minute Senate Education Committee hearing in which almost no one testified in support of the bill.

“I think at this late date in the session, this probably isn’t going anywhere,” Winder said. “This will continue to be worked on. … If we learned anything from the (2012) Luna laws, it’s that we need to have the stakeholders on board.”

That clearly wasn’t the case with the new formula, which shifts from a classroom-based funding model to one that distributes money to school districts based primarily on the number and type of students they have.

Every major stakeholder spoke against the legislation Monday, including Superintendent of Public Instruction Sherri Ybarra, the Idaho Education Association, Idaho Business for Education, Idaho School Boards Association and Idaho Association of School Administrators.

While all the groups support the need for a new formula and feel the Legislature is on the right track, they say more time is needed to understand any potential unintended consequences before a particular model is approved.

Ybarra said teachers and administrators are telling her the Legislature is moving too fast.

“What I hear is, why are we pushing to get this done this year, when we haven’t had time to consider all the impacts,” she said. “The new formula will likely be in place until 2050. I’m asking you to give us more time to understand the impacts and time to correct any problems.”

Ybarra was part of the interim committee that spent the past three years investigating the new formula. The group unanimously recommended that the Legislature shift from a classroom-based formula to an enrollment-based model. The intent is to provide greater flexibility and predictability in funding, as well as to acknowledge that it costs more to educate certain kinds of students, such as at-risk kids or special education students.

The interim committee, however, didn’t draft specific legislation highlighting the policy changes needed to enact such a transition. That work was left to a smaller group of legislators this year.

Stakeholders weren’t as involved during that stage of the process, nor were members of the House or Senate education committees. That ruffled a lot of feathers, and made it difficult for school officials around the state to keep track of what changes were being made and how they would affect their districts.

“While the interim committee spent three years on the new formula, we haven’t had it in bill form for even one complete week,” noted Harold Ott, representing Idaho Rural Schools and the Idaho Association of School Administrators.

“We’ve polled all of our six regions, and the majority of superintendents indicate they need more time to digest the bill and the model,” Ott said. “In some regions, that was 100 percent. … Much improvement has been made. Nonetheless, this is still a work in progress. There’s no rush; let’s do it right, not almost right.”

Sen. Carl Crabtree, R-Grangeville, who sits on the education committee, said he was “extremely disappointed” that the legislation appears to be dead for the year.

“We’ve been working on this pretty much the entire session,” Crabtree said. “Last week I thought we could still come to a solution. I wasn’t ready to sign off on the entire package, but I thought we were close.”

The education committee did not take action on the legislation following the completion of Monday’s hearing. There’s a chance lawmakers may try to salvage some parts of the bill, but the overall proposal seems unlikely to advance.

Spence may be contacted at bspence@lmtribune.com or (208) 791-9168.