Iowa City School Board Opens up Reserves to be Used to Lower Class Sizes

For months, Longfellow Elementary School (and other spots in the Iowa City School District) have been feeling the negative effects of a reduction of federal funding combined with in the school district that were not predicted to be there by the administration. As a result, some classroom populations have ballooned .

Before Tuesday night's long and sometimes heated debate at the Iowa City School Board meeting, there was both board policy and a calculated administrative risk standing in the way of this problem being solved this school year.

After the meeting, there now remains only the calculated risk.

The school board unanimously voted to change the board's policy requiring that the school district maintain five percent of its budget as an unobligated cash reserve for use in emergencies, instead setting the minimum requirement to three percent at the end of this fiscal year, four percent at the end of the next fiscal year and five percent at the end the fiscal year after that. The board also included that the intention of making this change was to allow Superintendent Steve Murley the freedom to address district staffing levels as he sees fit.

Before they deliberated on the issue, the board members heard from several Longfellow Elementary School parents on the issue, as they pleaded with the board to address overcrowded classrooms in their school.

Lori Kramer, a parent of two Longfellow Elementary students, said she came to put a human face on the problem, describing how her son was struggling to catch up in writing skills without the extra attention he needed.

"What he really needs is that classroom time with the teacher, to get him support," she said. "Right now, I have a really frustrated little boy when he comes home who really is beginning to hate school."

Renae McKay, another Longfellow parent, presented the school board with a petition with 261 signatures on it, reading off the statement of the petition to the board.

"We believe the overcrowding in our classes, particularly in grades 3-6, is serving as an impediment to learning and is detrimental to all students who attend Longfellow," McKay read.

All of the board members expressed concern about these problems. Much of the hours of clashing between school board members was procedural in nature.

For example, board member Sarah Swisher said she wanted the money for the decision to be earmarked for staffing increases, while other board members said that this was too prescriptive and didn't allow the administration to make the decisions on their own. Swisher disagreed.

"I believe that it's the board's responsibility to put some intention with the changes in our reserve fund," Swisher said.

Board member Sally Hoelscher said the intent seemed clear to her, and that the board should free up the money and let the administration take it from there.

"We are giving Steve (Murley) a little more cushion," Hoelscher said.

Other disagreements arose between board members who wanted a comprehensive plan to address class size problems for the entire district, not just the elementary schools. Other members argued that incremental changes should be made now, even if it only addressed the elementary school problems first. Finally, a compromise was reached, allowing the administrative team the flexibility to choose.

Why does this decision allow more flexibility?

This unspent cash reserve fund is used to help the district operate in the case unexpected shortfalls, such as the 10 percent accross the board cut issued by Gov. Chet Culver a few years ago.

Despite having a minimum allowable rate of three percent, the unspent balance is currently set to be 4.35 percent of the total budget at the end of this fiscal year. This means to return it to 5 percent for the next year, Superintendent Steve Murley would be required to cut the remaining .65 percent (or $847,000) out of the budget to meet board policy. This vote allows the administration to extend those cuts over a period of multiple fiscal years, not only preventing cuts this year, but also freeing up some money for staffing increases to ameliorate class size problems in places like Longfellow.

"This actually gives us some breathing room, which I think will be good," Murley said after the meeting.

Murley said instead of the rates that the school board gave him, he will likely be more conservative and spend down to 4 percent this year, 4.5 percent the year after and 5 percent at the end of the following year. With state allowable growth (the amount allowed by the state for districts to spend every year) hopefully returning to two percent in the next year, this will give the school district a chance to grow its budget slowly to match student enrollment growth as more money possibily returns in later years.

Now the calculated risk part.

To hire more teachers this school year, the district would have to overspend its allowable growth budget. The state's School Budget Review Committee does grant exceptions to allowable growth ceilings based on different factors, such as unexpected enrollment. However, if the district hires teachers now, administrators won't know until March if the committee will grant them this budget waiver, meaning that if it doesn't the state will require the district to cut that amount out of next year's budget.

Murley, however, seems willing to take that risk in order to solve the problem.

"We think we'll get the state exemption," Murley said, after the meeting.

Murley said although no promises can be made at this point, he and his staff are  developing plans for how to address the pockets of overcrowded classrooms in the district.