Area superintendents weigh in on school funding bill

BUTLER COUNTY – School districts in Iowa are set to receive a 1.1 percent increase in state supplemental aid for the 2017-2018 school year – which is less than the 2 percent increase school administrators were asking for and considerably less than the 4 percent increase the Iowa Association of School Boards recommends for a school to stay financially healthy.
“We were hoping for more than 1.1 percent, without a doubt,” said Aplington-Parkersburg Superintendent Jon Thompson. “It’s a bit disconcerting, really.”
For Thompson, like many school administrators in Iowa, the issue of underfunding education isn’t a short term worry, but rather a cause for concern over the long term.
“This isn’t just a one year deal,” Thompson said. “We’ve seen continually low [state supplemental aid] numbers five out of the last six years. And I don’t see that changing next year.”
Read the full article in the Feb. 23 edition of the papers.