News : School board, legislators wrestle with numbers

State Sen. Tim Kapucian and State Rep. Dawn Pettengill discuss budget issues with VS School Board.

66.

5,900.

120,000.

108,000,000.

Those numbers – and their impact on the Vinton-Shellsburg School District – were the subject of discussion between the VS School Board and the legislators who represent them in Des Moines during Monday’s meeting.

The district, Superintendent Mary Jo Hainstock told State Rep. Dawn Pettengill and State Sen. Tim Kapucian, saw its enrollment decrease by 66 students this year.

The state funding for the district is $5,900 per student. That means that next year, the district will receive $389,400 less in state funding than this year.

In addition to that reduction, the district also faces $120,000 in increased IPERS (Iowa Public Employees Retirement System) costs in the coming year.

Hainstock told the legislators that those numbers represent a $500,000 burden on the district, which suffered through last year’s 10 percent across-the-board budget cut – and possibly will face a year of zero allowable growth, depending on what the Iowa Legislature does in its session that begins next month.

That’s where the $108,000,000 comes in.

That is the amount of the projected shortfall in the Iowa budget this year. That shortfall means that Iowans should expect another very tight budgeting year. Pettengill reminded the school board that she told them last year to expect zero allowable growth this year. Yet both Pettengill and Kapucian said the budget discussions were just beginning. The legislators have met with other area school boards to discuss their funding concerns.