Supplemental State Aid continues to be a source of contention between Knoxville School Superintendent Cassi Murra and District 14 State Senator Amy Sinclair.

Murra recently addressed an e-mail to both Sinclair and District 28 State Representative Greg Heartsill urging them to help find a compromise to the SSA deadlock in the Iowa Legislature. She says the process is well overdue, since SSA funds for this year and next year should have already been approved.
Sinclair responded by providing figures regarding the process of determining the SSA percentage, as well as explaining that she and other legislators are looking at ways to offset any shortfalls schools may incur from a lack of SSA funding.
An entire copy of the email exchange can be seen below.
The following is an email from Knoxville Community School Superintendent Cassi Murra given to KNIA/KRLS News regarding a recent email conversation she had with District 14 State Senator Amy Sinclair regarding Supplemental State Aid:

Knoxville Community~
Here is the email I sent to our elected officials today:
“Dear Senator Sinclair and Representative Heartsill~
Please help us end the stalemate and find a COMPROMISE in the middle for Supplemental State Aid! It is well overdue and time to go back to the table and complete a task that should have legally been done in February 2014. Pink slips must be delivered by April 30…you can prevent unnecessary cuts, stress, and issues for schools by setting SSA this week!
We are counting on your leadership….”
Below, you will see the response I received from Senator Sinclair. Once again, our elected official chooses not to listen (no where in my email did I ask for 4% SSA), spouts political rhetoric to make excuses as to why they continue to break the law, and admits that the Governor is using bullying tactics of instilling fear of a veto as the reason she is not taking any action. I do appreciate the legislators that have worked to allow some of our categorical funds to be used in expanded ways; however, that has no bearing on the fact that our Supplemental State Aid has not been set for the upcoming year or the following year when the law states both should have already occurred. We followed the law and certified our budget at 0% SSA which increased our property taxes by 80 cents/$1,000.
The Democrats have lowered their offer to 2.625% SSA from the original 6%. They obviously understand the art of compromise and the importance of timely actions. Being a responsible school superintendent, I will continue to follow the law and make decisions in the best interest of our students despite the obstacles our senator and her colleagues are laying before us. Our children deserve better.
Sincerely,
Cassi Murra
Knoxville Community School District
Superintendent
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Please pardon the book I’ve written, Ms. Murra. I really appreciate you keeping in touch. Just wanted to share some information with you. I know it isn’t promising, but it embodies the facts of the situation.
As the deadline for schools to authorize a budget for FY16 has passed, a lot of pressure has been put on the Legislature to set Supplemental State Aid and to set it at 4%. While I believe we should properly fund education, I have to look at the issue with the rest of the state’s fiscal matters in view as well. Our ongoing revenue for FY 2016 is $7.175 billion, and our ongoing spending for the current fiscal year is $6.994 billion. This is the amount of money we will have to spend just to maintain a status quo budget for FY 2016. When you subtract the current ongoing expenditures from the estimated FY 2016 ongoing revenues, you are left with approximately $180 million in new spending for the upcoming FY 2016 budget. The FY 2016 budget has certain built-in and anticipated increases in spending that we know have to be funded. Those built-in and anticipated increases as determined by the nonpartisan Legislative Services Agency total $487 million, not counting any money for collective bargained salaries which is estimated to add over $100 million to the price tag. The largest built-in increase comes from our obligation to fund Medicaid. This increase alone is $209 million and would consume more than we have to spend in new revenue. FY 2016 supplemental state aid at 4% is approximately $212 million. This would also eat up all the new revenue, leaving no money to fund other items in the budget like Medicaid, funding to freeze tuition at the Regents institutions, funding for our community colleges, funding for public health and public safety, etc, etc.
Since 2002 we have over promised and under delivered on school funding 6 times. Four of those 6 times involved funding supplemental state aid at 4%. In October of 2009, three months into FY 2010, unsustainable levels of funding lead to a 10% across-the-board reduction which devastated schools. In an article that appeared on October 9, 2009 in the Quad City Times titled, “Schools shocked by magnitude of cuts” details the devastation schools faced from these cuts. A quote in that article from Theron Schutte, Bettendorf School District superintendent, says it all…..
“This puts all districts in the difficult position of trying to figure out how they are going to address one of the most significant education cuts in Iowa’s history,”. “We are going to have to look at everything and make some decisions on how we are going to address this year’s budget and going forward. This isn’t a one-year problem that is going to get fixed right away. It’s going to be a few years.”
The non-partisan Legislative Services Agency recently projected the future condition of the General Fund based on current spending, historic revenue growth (over last 10 years average 3.8%) and 4% supplemental state aid for FY 2016 and FY 2017. This level of funding resulted in the need to cut $74.8 million in FY 2016 and $515 million in FY 2017 in order to balance the budget. This level of funding not only results in spending more than we take in, it results in the complete elimination of the remaining surplus and the need to make the aforementioned cuts so as to not violate the spending limitation law.
In an article titled “Fact Check: Iowa Democrats mislead with statements on school funding”, Jason Noble of the Des Moines Register demonstrates that after adjusting for regional cost differences, Iowa actually ranks 24th in per-pupil spending, at $11,929. That’s $194 per student above per-pupil spending across all 50 states and D.C. according to, the Annie E. Casey Foundation. http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/politics/2015/03/01/fact-check-senate-democrats-school-funding/24186317/
I am very supportive of education funding, and our budget reflects that: total education funding makes up 55% of our total state spending, and I want to make sure our teachers have the tools they need to provide our children a world class education, but I cannot support a level of funding that is unsustainable, fiscally irresponsible and comes back to haunt taxpayers and hurt the very schools, teachers, kids and parents that we were intending to help.
Below is chart of education spending. Notice that in the past five years, education spending has grown by over 20% or $506,155,701 annually by the Governor’s FY16 budget.
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Please don’t think that I take the importance of education lightly. I have spent hundreds of hours this legislative session alone working on issues within education. Over my lifetime, I have spent years committed to personally educating children and adults so they could realize their own American Dream. I agree that 1.25% will not meet new expenditures for the coming year for some districts, but with tepid revenues associated with the dive in the ag market, the state’s revenues are simply tapped. The budget is not healthy this year because of those declining commodity prices. That affects how we fund everything – from education to water quality, from public safety to human services – everything will be impacted. Pre-K-12 education, unlike many other areas within the state’s budget which will likely see actual cuts in the upcoming budget year, has a commitment from all legislators of at least a 1.25% increase in funding. We’ve committed to that because we recognize and applaud the importance of our public schools. The hard numbers make it difficult to commit to more. An analysis done by the Legislative Services Agency indicated that to pass 4% SSA for this year and next would result in $500 million above and beyond the 99% state spending limitation. That would mean that as early as FY17, we could be facing statewide budget cuts similar to 2009 that devastated local governments across Iowa. Intellectually and emotionally, I have to say that is not a good move for any Iowan. This would place school districts, city councils, county supervisors, and a host of other local efforts in a very insecure position for the future. I will not vote to put that kind of insecurity into the state’s financial condition.
That is why I, and other legislators, have been working to increase the uses of many of the categorical funds to help offset the slower increase in revenues to the general fund. It has been my hope that expanding your local latitude with drop-out prevention funding, management funding, PPEL expenditures, and preschool administration will help to ease that hit. Each of these options is still alive for consideration and implementation by the legislature. Truthfully, it would be irresponsible to move anything else for fear of a veto that would result in 0% SSA and massive increases in local property taxes through the budget guarantee.
Thank you for getting in touch.
Amy