Last week, the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier interviewed Sam Miller, Chief Administrator, about the potential impact of additional funding cuts to Iowa’s Area Education Agencies. The story helped amplify our message to legislators that continuing to cut funding is not acceptable and has great potential to impact services. Shortly after, Governor Reynolds signed the bill that moved the proposed cuts forward for next year’s funding.
To ensure that Central Rivers AEA staff members continue to feel informed as the issue progresses, we wanted to also share the following key messages with you.
- We can’t continue to sustain funding cuts. In addition, receiving notice of a cut in late May when February is our budget deadline and contracts must go out to staff for the coming year in April doesn’t make good business sense.
- We will rely largely on reserves to resolve the budget shortfall this year; however, this is not a sustainable solution.
- It is necessary to maintain healthy reserves so that we are able to make payroll in August and early September (since AEAs are funded on a 10-month formula); thus, depending on the time of year that the reserve amount is reviewed, it may look artificially high. At Central Rivers AEA, our reserves are primarily due to the concerted efforts we have made to create efficiencies through the closure of several satellite office sites, consolidating operations in our Cedar Falls site, and negotiating fair settlements with staff. Being critical of healthy reserve balances is like punishing us for being fiscally conservative, something the majority of legislators value.
- The true impact of the cuts will likely be felt next year when the board and new chief administrator will have to make decisions about making up the shortfall should cuts continue.
- The services that Iowa’s AEAs provide are often behind the scenes but provide foundational support to students and schools. When those supports aren’t there, Iowans will begin to feel it – not only now, but down the road when those students become adults and we see the impact of what they didn’t receive during their K-12 educational career.
- Historically, we have provided direct services without cost to accredited non-public school districts. This includes support for students on Individualized Education Plans (IEPs) which includes services such as speech-language pathology, occupational therapy, and physical therapy. While no funding comes to AEAs for these services, AEAs provide the services because it’s the right thing for students. One solution is to change the funding formula to include accredited nonpublic students for special education services similar to how it works for public schools – we see this as an equity issue that will only be more difficult to overcome given school choice legislation.
- Gained traction legislatively by legislators in both parties.
- Was not included in this year’s budget.
- So rather than funding services delivered to students with IEP’s the special education funding is cut. We are going in the wrong direction.
