Local school districts respond to proposed state funding formula

State lawmakers are looking at changing Idaho’s education funding formula from being attendance-based to enrollment-based.

The last time Idaho updated its funding formula for public schools was 25 years ago.

The enrollment-based formula gets adjusted to a dollar amount per student enrolled in the district.

“It then gets adjusted by weights for special education students, gifted and talented students, English-language learners. Lots of different adjustments can be made to that base amount,” said Guy Wangsgard, the chief financial and operations officer for Bonneville Joint School District 93.

An enrollment-based formula could also give districts more control over staffing.

“In current legislation, they tell us how many teachers we have to hire and if we don’t hire that many, we lose the funding,” Wangsgard said. “Under the new formula, that goes away.

For some districts, the potential for the new formula is positive.

“The draft that they have published on their website shows under the assumptions they’ve used, right now, is it may provide us $5 million more,” Wangsgard said.

But it also could potentially make several districts lose money.

“Currently, it will hurt us to the tune of $1.2 million,” said Byron Stutzman, the superintendent for Fremont County Joint School District 215.

Fremont County School District 215 would be losing 9.3 percent of funding, which is $600 per student.

“That’s part of the reason it hurts us so much because this district is wealthy, per se,” Stutzman said. “Our median income is not that high when you look at (it). But we have a huge property value in comparison to the number of students we have. Most of that is because of everything that’s up in Island Park.”

That kind of loss would make property taxes in the area potentially go up, which would affect what the district could ask for in future supplemental levy elections.

“This new formula is mandating districts like ours to figure out how to fund themselves,” Stutzman said. “We’re going to have to raise property taxes if they don’t make the adjustments that they need to in this new formula.”

According to a report from the Idaho Center of Fiscal Policy, that would be a $72 increase per home in Fremont County.

The committee that made the formula is also working to create a hold harmless provision to make sure school districts do not get less funding for at least three years.

“It gives our district a 2 percent increase per year where other districts will get to a 7.5 (percent increase) per year for the next three years,” Stutzman said. “What that does is create a big disparity between my district and the districts that are gaining the full 7.5 percent. By the end of three years, we’re 16.5 percent behind.”

Stutzman asks that the lawmakers carefully think about the formula and not make any decisions right away.

“The good thing is: It’s not a done deal yet,” Stutzman said. “We’ve got a long ways to go and, hopefully, they will continue to work on it until they get it right.”