Assignment

NEW HARBOR SCHOOL DISTRICT

New Harbor School District is a relatively small district, currently enrolling approximately 1,000 students. New Harbor’s current budget is $12 million — a figure that’s been dropping significantly for several years.

However, New Harbor’s population has shifted in recent years. It now has a significant number of students who require additional services and supports. There are now 50 English language learner students; 100 students with a disability; and 250 students in poverty in the New Harbor School District.

Calculating the cost of services and supports for these students shows that New Harbor’s English language learners require double the amount of services and supports above a base cost; students with a disability require one-and-a- half times more; and students in poverty 50 percent more.

Because New Harbor is a small school district and because there’s a lack of tax base within the district, it has to spend even more to provide basic services.

If New Harbor used an accurate, fair, and transparent education funding formula that addressed the necessary resources required by its student population, it would look something like this:

Base Cost 5 Total Student Enrollment

5 1.1 for higher costs of operating a small school district

5 1.1 for districts located in a region with a low property tax base

+ # of ELL students 5 Base Cost 5 2.0

+ # of students with disabilities 5 Base Cost 5 1.5

+ # of students in poverty 5 Base Cost 5 0.5

Plugging in the numbers listed above — using $10,000 as the Base Cost — shows that New Harbor’s current cost to provide services and supports for its students is $15.85 million. That’s the adequacy goal or target.

5 5 =

New Harbor’s adequacy goal is $3.85 million beyond its current budget of $12 million. The $3.85 million gap is known as the funding gap.

How is New Harbor going to close the gap?

States that use sound funding formula components — an accurate base cost, student and district factors, and an adequacy goal — typically take a measured approach to reaching their adequacy goal.

That often means phasing in funding increases to reach the adequacy goal over time, rather than appropriating the entire dollar amount of the gap in one year. Characteristics of a school district, such as community wealth and local tax effort, are often used to determine whether the state or the local district should provide a greater percentage of funding to close the gap.

New Harbor, because it already has a high tax effort but relatively low property values, would likely need the state to provide a larger share of funding to close the gap. Without this extra help from the state, the district could never generate enough local funding to provide its students with an equal opportunity to learn compared to children living in more wealthy communities with fewer high-cost students.

Additional formula calculations would be necessary to establish the actual percentage increase provided by the state and by the district. The school board and state leaders have not been able to develop a long term funding formula.

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