Pella Schools Superintendent Greg Ebeling joins the vast majority of public school administrators in expressing disappoint and concern in legislation that provides Education Savings Accounts to students attending private schools in Iowa.

Ebeling says while he knows the bill may ultimately benefit Pella and that he’s not necessarily worried about negative impacts locally, he has great worry for what the legislation does to the state’s education budget at a time where major tax cuts were recently passed and many school districts in Iowa have felt squeezed in their general funds for nearly a decade.

“It’s one of the things that Republicans have had on their agenda for several years and we worked for several years to try and defeat that bill,” he says. “This year it seemed like a runaway train. I’m certainly disappointed that it passed, that’s just my overall feeling. I think there’s a little bit of an anti-public school sentiment out there and I think this adds to that.”

“I think what we have in Pella for a public school is amazing — we have great options in our community with public and private, and people have been taking advantage of those whether they received some kind of additional money to go to a private school or not, so to me it’s a little strange that we are spending the kind of dollars we are on that bill.”

“We honestly think we offer great programming at Pella and will continue to offer great programming, so we’re a great option in our community whether your a private school or public school person — we think the things we do with students are very, very good, so we don’t it hurting us that badly, but certainly I think for the state and how to maintain that is going to be the challenge for the Republican party — they’re governing right now and they’re going to have to figure out how this budget is going to work going forward, and with some of the tax cuts that have been given, there’s going to be less revenue in the future. To make to continue to work — I don’t think that’s been fully thought out.”

According to the non-partisan Legislative Services Agency, the full implementation of the legislation signed by Governor Kim Reynolds is expected to cost $879 million over the next four years, which includes scholarships for every private K-12 student by 2025-26 and additional funding for public schools with those individuals living in their district borders. This comes after a flat tax was passed in the 2022 session, which combined with elimination of retirement taxes, is expected to cost the state $561.4 million in revenue in the next fiscal year, $768 million in 2025, and $1.348 billion by FY 2026 — the same session as when the ESAs will be fully implemented.

Ebeling also says that with 75% of public school districts currently existing without a private school options, he wonders what school choice actually exists under the new law without families moving away from smaller communities — which could have significantly negative impacts on those who are trying to keep their doors open.

Hear more from Ebeling about this week’s Pella School Board meeting and his response to ESA legislation on Let’s Talk Pella.