By Elsa Andersson Maher
I have a lot of questions about public school funding and how they are spent.
Why don’t we spend money on air conditioning? How much do we spend on student discipline, rather than the well being of students? What kind of efforts are directed at preventing students from dropping out?
I have helped out with my dad in warming centers in Auburn for the homeless. I have been subjected to rants about how difficult it is to get funding from neighboring towns and how little some people care about the homeless. I have always been very passionate about this issue and I am wondering how we can stop this from happening at its source.
Every public school in the U.S.is required to comply with the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, passed in 1987, a federal law that provides federal money for homeless shelter programs. This means every school system must have an employee who ensures that its schools follow the law. RSU 16 Superintendent Todd Sanders gave me some information about funding for McKinney-Vento students. “The largest expense when it comes to homeless students is the cost of transportation,” said Mr. Sanders, noting that it is a combined effort between the towns inside the district where the M-V students reside, and the school itself. The pilot funds set aside for this amounts to approximately $10,000 but this is mostly money set aside for emergencies. Other funds for homeless kids still require budget increases through higher taxes.
According to the Institute of Children, M-V funds should be going towards not only transportation but basic school supplies, tutors and specialized academic support and training for teachers. I have not gone deep into the funding system, regulations or training, but from asking around, I couldn’t find a teacher who knew something about this program.
Of course, it costs a lot of money to run a school – taxpayer money. According to educationdata.org ,on average k-12 public schools in the United States receive $794.7 billion dollars annually. The RSU 16 budget for 2024-25 which ands around $29,329,077.
Would you be surprised to hear that our school is getting a budget cut of $759,000 ? It's not what you think, however. After talking to Principal Erik Anderson, I learned that these cuts are due to rising taxes. Due to inflation, all school budget item costs are rising, leading to pressure to accommodate taxpayers from three towns so that they can avoid drastically higher taxes (tax burdens carry extra weight for retired people).
Fortunately, the budget and finance managers in our school district work hard to keep the status quo in terms of tax burden. This means keeping everything that might need to be replaced either fixed up or maintained. Keeping a tight budget also means there is not enough left to accommodate new after -chool programs, sports teams, etc. Still, we are lucky to have things such as projectors without needing those extra funds.
If you’re like me you might be wondering, how can we use funds within the standard operating budget in a more useful manner? Creating more funding would obviously be amazing for the school, but from what I've learned there is no way to do that without raising taxes. No one wants that, right? Just from observing, there are a few things I can think of that the school might not need to spend money on. These things are vape detectors which, assuming the school doesn't get a discount, is $8,917.93 for the model in our bathrooms.
Another issue that is raising concerns for citizens: the schools are asking for another $10.2 million to replace those furnaces. This is something that all homeowners are familiar with. Something that is so important and expensive as a furnace that needs replacing at any point requires saving ahead of time.
Overstaffing is also something I've noticed. Remember I am not a budget expert. Yet I have been bewildered at the amount of adults walking the halls, whether they're helping teachers or are there for any other reason. Helping those with learning disabilities is very important, but witnessing three different people walk in to make sure one of my friends with ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) is doing their work is mind boggling to me.
We should be paying teachers well, but having multiple teachers pressuring the same kid to do school work doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. Again, I am neither a teacher, administrator or a budget expert. Keep in mind, however, that all these adult voices, however well intended, make some students feel controlled and small.
If we were to maintain our funding “status quo,” the school budget is sufficient to help all kids, if the funding is used in a more sustainable way.
