Some data on school budgets and funding

Comparing school districts general education revenues represents a window on the comparative resources available to each district to meet state standards. In the next few posts I’m going to provide some data on the finance of several school districts for comparative purposes.   Compared to some states, Minnesota relies more extensively on state income tax revenues to provide a public education.   Compared to many states, Minnesota’s state school revenue system is somewhat more of an equalizing force.   However, that doesn’t make our system rational, or constitutional, or effective.  

 

The purpose of this blog post, is not to argue who is treated more fairly or rationally.  Minnesota does not set its state education budget-based cost, on meeting state standards.  Instead, we set our state education budget based on what we spent last year, and the years before that, plus an adjustment based on a push and shove between the governor and the legislature.  It’s actually a pretty strange way of providing a thorough and efficient system of education which is required to provide an education that meets all state standards.  Wouldn’t you expect that someone might think to say, if we are going to do this, we’d better start by asking how much it will cost, and basing the answer on data?

School districts in Minnesota receive most of their revenues from the state.   The state revenues come from two primary sources – from the state income tax and from property tax revenues that are collected on behalf of the state and then allocated out to local governments according to a state established formula.  If a particular jurisdiction collects more taxes than another:  those revenues are thrown into the state’s money barrel and allocated out as determined by the state funding formula.    

School districts also receive money from the federal government (federal special education revenue and Title 1, for example).   And, they receive revenue from operating levies some of which may be levied by the board of education, and others which may be levied by voter approved taxes.   A district’s share of the state property tax revenues are not allocated based on the taxes that the district can collect from their local taxpayers, but are allocated based on the funding formula set by the legislature.   The local operating levies, on the other hand, are set in part by the school board, and in part by voter referendum. The ability to levy these property tax revenues differs from district to district, based upon state law, local priorities and politics, on tax base, on the kinds of students being served, and the public’s perceived sense of whether additional money will benefit the community.
 

I’ve picked two districts arbitrarily for this post, Edina and St. Cloud I’ll look at Minneapolis, St. Paul, and some  other districts in subsequent posts. First, let’s look at some information about the students these tow districts.  I’ve snipped demographic information from the state’s Report Card website:

Now let’s look at some 2017 data on revenues for these two districts

So, wow, is St. Cloud really better off financially than Edina?   Let’s take a closer look.   St. Cloud has a special education deficit of over $11 million.  Spreading that deficit over all 10K students subtracts about $1067 from the $13593 per student received by St. Cloud.   Edina also has a special education cross subsidy, but its $400 less than St. Cloud’s, so effectively, we need to subtract $682 from Edina, bringing what is left to St. Cloud down closer to Edina. 

But to compare whether the $12,665 is fair to Edina or the $13,593 is fair to St. Cloud, we have to look at the job that each has to do with that money.   Over 60 percent of St. Cloud’s students are Free and Reduced Lunch eligible.  That’s part of the reason that St. Cloud gets more money from the state—the state recognizes that statistically, free and reduced lunch eligible students require more resources.   But that extra money is not allocated based on research on cost: it’s the result of political arbitrage.   Based upon what we observe happening in districts with high populations of FRL eligible students, it is pretty clear that the funding supplement provided is only partial compensation for what is required. 

This post is about funding, but we must mention in passing that money is not the sole component required, but one can’t span the subject of education in a single post.

Here is a thought experiment. 

How many of you out there think that if Edina had a magic wand that could turn 60% of its students into FRL eligible students in return for the extra money that comes with it, that they would do so.  Its kind of a ridiculous thought experiment, I suppose, but the thought proves my point.  There is no way that anyone, even the whacko experts who run around and say that money doesn’t matter, would contend that would be an even trade.   St. Cloud is not receiving anywhere near sufficient funding to bring the 62% FRL students up to state education standards. 

We actually have no baseline to prove or disprove what I have asserted, because, as I have said, Minnesota does not fund FRL students based on the cost of getting them an education that meets state standards.  It may sound cynical, but Minnesota’s plan for FRL students is to dramatically underfund what it takes to educate them to state standards and then humiliate teachers for failing to do that. 

But we are not done:   St. Cloud spends three times as much as Edina on ELL students.   St. Cloud would like to spend more per students, but it already has a $11 plus million dollar special education deficit and according to AMSD—a $1.2 million ELL deficit.  Both of those deficits are rising significantly.  

Again, I want to emphasize that I'm an advocate for better teaching, better curriculum, more efficient targeted use of resources.   The two go together.  But the point of these series is that the funding that we provide districts to deal with students we are currently left behind is not based on data on what it takes.  In a subsequent post, I'll take another approach to investigating how much resources it actually takes.  But before that, I'll provide a few more posts on comparative funding of Minnesota districts.