(Radio Iowa) – Senate Republicans are making their initial offer on state funding of Iowa’s public and private schools. It would be a per pupil increase of one-and-three-quarters of a percent (1.75%) for the next school year. Governor Reynolds has recommended a two percent increase. Senator Lynn Evans, a Republican from Aurelia, is a retired superintendent who says the goal is to make the decision quickly, so school officials can make decisions on next year’s budgets.

“What I’ve heard loud and clear when we’re out talking to people in education, especially superintendents and school board members, is they want to know as early as possible,” Evans said. “Having sat in that seat myself, I wanted to know as early as possible, so we’re trying to…get these negotiations started.” Margaret Buckton is a lobbyist for the Urban School Network and the Rural Schools of Iowa. She says due to declining enrollment, 90 districts will get less state support next year at that level — just as they’re required by state law to pay beginning and experienced teachers higher salaries.

“Some of those are big, like Council Bluffs and Bettendorf. Some are Perry and Red Oak — they’re county seats that will lose over a half million dollars each. There are little ones like George-Little Rock up in northwest Iowa that’s down over a quarter of a million dollars,” Buckton said. “They have to make adjustments for lower staff, less program at the same time they have to pay the new salary minimums.”

Fort Madison School Board member Rachella Dravis, of Denmark, Iowa, is a recently retired teacher and she says school boards will have to make unpopular decisions. “We are so far behind. We never talk about the inflation we are chasing,” Dravis said. “What we used to give our kids in state aid is so much different now than what it was when I started 36 years ago.”

Under the Senate Republicans’ plan, the increase in state funding for public schools would be 145 dollars per pupil. And each state-funded account to cover a student’s private school expenses would get a deposit of over 81-hundred dollars.