BOISE, Idaho — School districts in Idaho are making drastic changes due to reported failed ballot support and cuts in federal funding.
Where funding comes from and how it gets distributed is a common question with a complex answer.
The Idaho Department of Education drafts budget recommendations for the legislature, and the Joint Finance and Appropriations Committee sets the budget.
“The state department of education is responsible distributing those funds whether it’s state funds or federal funds,” said Ryan Cantrell, Chief Deputy Superintendent of the Idaho Department of Education. “We’re the distributor of those fund and then the local school board’s all 190 charters and traditional districts. They get to make those decisions about how they’re spent in their districts.”
Local control determines spending. The department is not in charge of each district’s decisions or whether they advocate for the ballot.
Salaries are the bulk of a district’s budget. The funds might not cover what they need.
“Bonds and levies, especially that supplemental levy and whether or not a local community passes bonds, is a 100 percent local decision,” Cantrell said. “There are some communities who are very supportive of those supplemental levies, and they can fund a variety of things from paying their teachers more or paying for curriculum. It can even be building a new baseball field; it can be almost anything that they clearly state on the ballot.”
Federal funds got a big boost during the pandemic, with almost one billion dollars entering the public education system.
Most of those funds, elementary and secondary school emergency relief funds, or ESSR for short, were temporary and will end.
“That’s a huge influx and schools use that money wisely to improve their programs and to address learning loss,” Cantrell said. “But when those dollars come to an end, specifically the 650 million dollar influx of ESSR dollars, it can be really hard even though you’ve seen that end coming for two or three years. When the money is done, which is this September it can be very difficult to say ‘okay, what are we not going to not do in the future that we’ve been doing for the past two or three years that have benefited our students?’”
With the funds ending and the recent change back to enrollment, the Idaho Department of Education tried to make changes that failed this legislative session.
“I’ll be a continued priority going into the legislative session: to adjust the funding formula to provide that increased flexibility to schools,” Cantrell said.
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