Friday News Roundup: Week of October 3-7

13 West Virginia counties could lose federal school funding

Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education to seek a 2.1 percent increase in state funding for 2012-2013

Texas facing at least two school funding lawsuits

Iowa lawmakers: We’re open to more school spending

13 West Virginia counties could lose federal school funding
A federal program implemented in 2000 to provide relief for rural counties with declining forestry revenues as a result of restrictions on harvesting timber on federal land expired at the end of fiscal year 2011. The Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act provided funding for, among other things, schools in those counties. Now that the law has expired, schools are struggling to determine future sources of funding for the schools to fill the shortfall. Six hundred county school systems around the country, including 13 West Virginia counties, have received funding since the program’s inception and they will continue to receive the federal monies through December 31^st of this year. After that, no funding will be available through the program unless a reauthorization effort is successful. A bipartisan group of members of Congress plans to introduce a reauthorization bill next week. More here…

Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education to seek a 2.1 percent increase in state funding for 2012-2013
The Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education this week approved an appropriation request for the 2012-13 state fiscal year of $421.4 million. That total is a 2.1 percent increase over the fiscal year 2012 appropriation. According to a spokesman for the system, the request represents one of the smallest increases the system has ever made. The full appropriation would still mean a $23 million budget gap for Pennsylvania’s higher education institutions. The shortfall is largely being fueled by growing benefits and operational costs. Labor disputes within the system could also increase that shortfall if union contracts provide salary increases for faculty. The system would fill the budget gap through tuition increases and budget cuts within the state’s colleges and universities. More here…

Texas facing at least two school funding lawsuits
At least two Texas groups are preparing to file lawsuits against the state’s method of financing public education. In 2006, Texas reduced the property tax rate and set the minimum state per-student spending level at the amount school districts received at that time; the measure became permanent, which has led to substantial funding disparities among school districts, sometimes even between neighboring districts. One of the organizations filing suit, the Equity Center, says that the education funding system is arbitrary and inequitable. Thus far, 139 school districts have agreed to sign on to the lawsuit, and others remain undecided. The organization also said it plans to eventually include individual citizens in the suit. The other lawsuit, led by a practiced school finance lawyer, will focus on the state’s failure to contribute enough funding to public education to meet higher accountability standards and on its implementation of what could be considered an unconstitutional statewide property tax. More here…

Iowa lawmakers: We’re open to more school spending
Iowa Governor Terry Branstad recently released a new statewide education plan that calls for increased state spending on public schools. Lawmakers in the state say that they are now willing to consider providing higher funding for education, and that improving economic forecasts may permit them to do so. According to the state’s Senate Majority leader, about $600 million is available in a reserve account, with a projected $400 million surplus at the end of fiscal year 2012. Other lawmakers, however, are less optimistic about the state’s fiscal future. One legislator on the Senate Appropriations Committee warned other lawmakers that he would not support shifting the funds from other education programs to pay for the education plan; and no members of either party have expressed a willingness to raise taxes to provide the additional funding. More here…