Review of school funding formula may benefit District
Carol Brimm
Gov. Brad Henry signed legislation last week to create a school funding task force to review the current method used to distribute state aid to Oklahoma schools. The Oklahoma State Aid Funding Formula was developed in 1981 in an effort to fairly distribute state aid among Oklahoma school districts. The formula has been reviewed over the years to meet emerging needs, but some Oklahoma legislators and school officials believe the complicated formula fails to meet the needs of fast growing districts across the state.
“The current formula is not as fair as it could be to districts that are growing,” Mustang School District Superintendent Karl Springer said. “There should be some offset for growing districts.”
The school funding formula is a very complicated method used to calculate a school districts need for state aid based on a variety of factors including, but not limited to, special education, gifted, bilingual and economically disadvantaged factors as well as student population size, which is determined by average daily attendance reports. Hinging aid on average daily attendance numbers that are four months old by the time the funds are distributed is the crux of the problem for growing districts, according to Springer.
State aid distributed in the fall is based on the average daily attendance at the end of the previous school year. For growing districts like Mustang, Owasso, Edmond and Piedmont that means state aid funds are based on a much smaller student population than the one returning in the fall.
“Those numbers are four months old when they give us the money,” Springer said. “They pay us based on what the average was (at the end of the previous school year) but that number will be way under what we will start with in the fall.”
Since 1997, a mid-term adjustment based on average daily attendance over the first nine-weeks of the fall term has been issued to school districts each January. However, for districts like Mustang where enrollment increases by 100 or more students from October through December, the adjustment does not keep up with growing funding needs. According to Springer, the number of Mustang students continues to increase until about February and then it declines until the end of the school year. This makes the average daily attendance number taken in May just that much lower than the actual number of students who will start school in the fall.
“It is a complicated formula,’ Mustang School Board President Jeff Johnson said. “They are trying to be fair and balanced. Nothing is perfect but schools that are growing with rapid growth and no industry tax dollars to help support that growth are always playing catch up.”
Johnson said he would like to see a pool of funds that districts could go to so they could take funds from their portion as it is needed.
“The needs are now and the money to meet those needs would be now,” Johnson said.
Springer said he hopes the group selected to serve on the school funding task force will be very careful.
“The formula now is not perfect, but it’s pretty good,” Springer said. “Twenty years ago some pretty smart people put this together and they set the standard pretty high.”
Oklahoma public schools receive revenue from state appropriations, state dedicated revenues, local revenue and federal revenue.
Carol Brimm
Gov. Brad Henry signed legislation last week to create a school funding task force to review the current method used to distribute state aid to Oklahoma schools. The Oklahoma State Aid Funding Formula was developed in 1981 in an effort to fairly distribute state aid among Oklahoma school districts. The formula has been reviewed over the years to meet emerging needs, but some Oklahoma legislators and school officials believe the complicated formula fails to meet the needs of fast growing districts across the state.
“The current formula is not as fair as it could be to districts that are growing,” Mustang School District Superintendent Karl Springer said. “There should be some offset for growing districts.”
The school funding formula is a very complicated method used to calculate a school districts need for state aid based on a variety of factors including, but not limited to, special education, gifted, bilingual and economically disadvantaged factors as well as student population size, which is determined by average daily attendance reports. Hinging aid on average daily attendance numbers that are four months old by the time the funds are distributed is the crux of the problem for growing districts, according to Springer.
State aid distributed in the fall is based on the average daily attendance at the end of the previous school year. For growing districts like Mustang, Owasso, Edmond and Piedmont that means state aid funds are based on a much smaller student population than the one returning in the fall.
“Those numbers are four months old when they give us the money,” Springer said. “They pay us based on what the average was (at the end of the previous school year) but that number will be way under what we will start with in the fall.”
Since 1997, a mid-term adjustment based on average daily attendance over the first nine-weeks of the fall term has been issued to school districts each January. However, for districts like Mustang where enrollment increases by 100 or more students from October through December, the adjustment does not keep up with growing funding needs. According to Springer, the number of Mustang students continues to increase until about February and then it declines until the end of the school year. This makes the average daily attendance number taken in May just that much lower than the actual number of students who will start school in the fall.
“It is a complicated formula,’ Mustang School Board President Jeff Johnson said. “They are trying to be fair and balanced. Nothing is perfect but schools that are growing with rapid growth and no industry tax dollars to help support that growth are always playing catch up.”
Johnson said he would like to see a pool of funds that districts could go to so they could take funds from their portion as it is needed.
“The needs are now and the money to meet those needs would be now,” Johnson said.
Springer said he hopes the group selected to serve on the school funding task force will be very careful.
“The formula now is not perfect, but it’s pretty good,” Springer said. “Twenty years ago some pretty smart people put this together and they set the standard pretty high.”
Oklahoma public schools receive revenue from state appropriations, state dedicated revenues, local revenue and federal revenue.
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