Our unusual school-funding model diffuses responsibility

Published June 12, 2015

by Bob Ashely, Durham Herald-Sun, June 7, 2015.

The discussion between the Durham Public Schools board and the Durham County

Commissioners is a near-annual event.

Once again, the boards and top administrators for the schools and the county spar over

how much money the county should ante up, over differing views of how much the

schools should spend to educate the 33,000-plus students in the traditional public school

system, and over whether schools give taxpayers their money’s worth.

Let me suggest that this ritual is inefficient and distracting to both governmental entities

and that it diffuses accountability and responsibility.

It doesn’t have to be that way. In fact, in most states, it isn’t.

In North Carolina, local taxpayers generally provide from a quarter to a third of school

budgets. In Durham, it’s slightly more than a quarter. he proportion of school funds that

comes from the state varies widely a – from a low of about a third in exas, South

Dakota and Illinois to almost 90 percent in Hawaii and Vermont, according to the Center

for Public Education. North Carolina, at around 50 percent, is more or less in the middle.

But North Carolina is one of fewer than a dozen states where the folks who spend the

local money – the school board – don’t have the authority to raise the money. In 34

states, according to the Education Commission of the States, local school districts are

fully invested with the power to levy their own taxes. In several states, local districts

have some authority to tax.

In nine states, no district is what is called “fiscally independent.” North Carolina is one of

a couple almost none is fiscally independent – two in this state, by the commission’s

count.

I’ve lived and worked in two states – Pennsylvania and Kentucky – where school districts

have taxing authority – and responsibility.the model makes much more sense.

We see the muddle our system creates in the current debate. he commissioners who

hold the purse strings for the schools have no role in and no accountability for the quality

of instruction that goes on. he school board has to answer only to the commissioners for

their stewardship of the tax money – not to the voters who elect them and who are taxed.

he N. C. School Boards Association has lobbied for legislative change, although not, as

far as I can tell, in recent years.

In an issue brief a few years ago, the association noted several arguments for fiscal

independence for school districts.

“School boards are elected to be the education leaders and decision-makers in their

communities,” the association argued. “School boards should not have to education and

justify their needs to another group who are neither schooled in education issues nor held

accountable for the school systems’ success or failure.”

The association’s brief notes some arguments for the status quo – that giving boards

taxing authority would lead to finance issues, not educational issues, dominating board

races, or that school boards would raise taxes. Evidence in other states suggests neither is

true. I can say from personal observation that voters are quick to punish school boards

they think tax too aggressively.

I suspect there is little momentum for change. But North Carolina would be well served

to join the vast majority of states in eliminating the regular scrum between school boards

and county commissioners over funding.