How much money do Iowa’s K-12 schools really need? And how much can the state government afford to spend?
Those are the weighty questions the Iowa Legislature tried to wrestle with this spring. After a compromise had finally been struck, a proposal was sent to Gov. Terry Branstad, who vetoed a one-time $55.7 million one-time appropriation that would have accompanied a 1.25 percent increase in funding from 2014-15.
That veto led to a whole new set of partisan anger and accusations, along with a call for a possible special session. However, there’s not much optimism that a special session will be scheduled by the July 29 deadline, so that leaves Republicans and Democrats bickering at one another.
It also leaves educators just as much at odds with high-ranking state officials as they were during the spring funding demonstrations and debates.
State Sen. Chaz Allen spoke at the Jasper County Democrats’ monthly meeting last Thursday. He said two Branstad staffers who sat in on state education budget meetings with legislators gave no indication that a veto was imminent.
“The governor made the comment that we understood that he wouldn’t sign off on the one-time money,” Allen said. “His staff was in all the negotiations with us, and they not once told us that this would get vetoed. They were all leaning toward this being a viable option. That chaps me pretty bad. I don’t have to be nice about it. He vetoed this out of spite.”
Allen said the veto cost schools in his district $1,558, 171. That includes $739,889 for Southeast Polk, $329,430.08 for the Newton Community School District, $189,266 for Bondurant-Farrar, $178,961 for Grinnell-Newburg, $83,230 for Colfax-Mingo and $38,074 for Baxter Schools.
Allen doesn’t believe both houses will be able to come up with the two-thirds majority needed to reconvene and override the veto. State funding narrowly passed by a 26-24 vote in the Senate.
Branstad told the Associated Press on Monday that lawmakers will not be able to get the necessary support from two-thirds of members for such a session. He said Republicans would not want to come back for a fight on education funding.
The Republican governor said he was exercising fiscal restraint and that the state was making other education investments. He also said schools will have to look at ways to be more efficient.
Statewide, the fallout has been ugly. The website “The Starting Line” published two emails this week from State Sen. David Johnson (R-Ocheyedan). In one email, a reply to Waterloo East High School science teacher Vaughn Gross, Johnson said the extra time in this year’s session (beyond the May 1 per-diem end date) cost him money.
“The session extended by the Democrats unnecessarily cost me” $2,000 — my money, not taxpayers,’” Johnson said in the email. “Quit whining.”
Johnson later replied to a colleague of Gross’s, and wasn’t apologetic.
“True ed reform won’t happen until that $6,000 in state aid is stapled to every student’s backpack and spent at the discretion of the parent(s),” Johnson said in the second email. “I sure hope all these emails are going viral too.”
Contact Jason W. Brooks at 641-792-3121 ext. 6532 or jbrooks@newtondailynews.com