African-Americans in Indiana, especially Indianapolis, were losers when the state budget passed in the sudden death legislative session last Tuesday. The vicious way the budget treated school districts with significant numbers of African-American students is one reason why all 12 African-American legislators voted no!
The budget targeted Marion County’s schools, as six of the city/county’s 11 school districts received the short end of the fiscal stick.
How city/county schools were maltreated is why virtually all Marion County Democratic legislators voted no. Joining State Senators Greg Taylor and Billie Breaux and State Representatives Bill Crawford, John Bartlett, Greg Porter, Vanessa Summers and Cherrish Pryor in voting no, were State Representatives John Day, Jeb Bardon and Ed DeLaney.
Unfortunately, two Marion County Democrats, John Barnes and Mary Ann Sullivan, voted against preserving our schools. Their votes for this boneheaded budget were a direct affront to our community. African-Americans should remember how Barnes and Sullivan stood when they vote in May and November 2010!
While Democrats said it threatened public education, Republican legislators and Governor Mitch Daniels were ecstatic over a budget that shortchanged Marion County’s schools. Daniels told the Indianapolis Star, “If this is an end to public education as we know it, I say thank goodness. We need to end it as we know it and move on.”
Legislative newcomer Ed DeLaney was caustic and critical of the Daniels attack on our schools. “I believe that the other side has a position on public education they have not articulated,” DeLaney was quoted by the Howey Political Report, “I think there is a direct assault on public education and they won’t say it. DeLaney added, “We must say no to the lingering death of the Indianapolis Public Schools.”
Governor Daniels and legislative Republicans think we should be happy because schools got an average one percent funding increase. But let me put those percentages into hard numbers.
In Indianapolis/Marion County, five school districts got huge funding jumps.
Decatur Township schools funding rose 4.4 percent, $1.5 million of out a total $34.5 million allocation. Franklin Township rose 2.7 percent, $1.1 million out of $44.4 million. Wayne Township, up 2.6 percent, $2.2 million out of $87.9 million; Warren Township up 2.3 percent, $1.5 million out of $68.3 million and Perry Township rising two percent, $1.4 million out of $73.8 million allocated.
Now the districts that got screwed.
In percentage terms, it sounds like Pike Township did well with a 1.4 percent funding increase. But in dollars, it’s just $789,000 out of $57.3 million in funding. Beech Grove up 1.1 percent; $143,000 out of $12.7 million allocated. Washington Township rose a paltry $280,000, 0.5 percent of $55.1 million allocated, while Lawrence Township gets stiffed with a $231,000 increase out of $83.5 million; a 0.3 percent increase.
Then there’s Speedway’s schools, where Daniels’ and Republicans cut funding 90 grand out of $9.7 million allocated.
Then there’s what the budget did to IPS. A cut in basic state funding of $19.2 million next year and another $19 million the following year. Cuts of over seven percent.
The budget awards big funding jumps to some charter schools. Especially those run by out of town educational corporations who open charter schools across the country and collect “management fees” like a restaurant franchisor.
At the expense of community-based charters like Flanner House, they don’t have access to the marketing and recruiting budgets of corporate-owned charter schools. And how did the Governor and his public school haters reward Flanner House’s high marks for academic excellence and achievement?
With a funding increase of $4,400 out of a total of $1.3 million in state aid; a whopping 0.3 percent rise.
So much for rewarding charter school excellence.
Before the state took over full funding of K-12 education in the 2008 property tax deal, schools could augment their state funding by raising property taxes. That funding stream’s gone. But Indiana still funds schools based upon enrollment. And with many Indiana cities, small towns and rural areas losing population, using enrollment as the benchmark to fund schools is becoming a dicey, risky, possibly illegal proposition.
It’s made worse by the fact that to create a biennial budget, lawmakers must estimate what a school district’s enrollment will be during the two-year budget cycle.
When I asked Senate Republicans, who created the budget that passed, how they created those enrollment estimates for 2010 and 2011, they passed the buck to the Legislative Services Agency (LSA).
LSA has yet to respond to my inquiries, but I suspect LSA didn’t use accepted demographic research in creating their enrollment estimates. They probably used a Ouija board or Kentucky windage.
Indiana’s schools, including those here, deserve a more professional way of computing school funding, instead of relying on guesswork from demographically untrained legislative staffers.
The other big loser in legislative overtime was Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard who saddled the city/county taxpayers with a bigger Capital Improvement Board (CIB) mess, including $27 million more in debt.
The mayor’s abject performance was crucified by Indianapolis’ mainstream media.
The Indianapolis Business Journal: “Could Mayor Greg Ballard have done a more inept job garnering support for a bailout of (the) CIB? The mayor was missing in action through much of the session. Lawmakers found him more annoying than persuasive.”
The Indianapolis Star: “Mayor Greg Ballard arrived on the field late, shifted positions often and ultimately dropped the ball. (He) wasted a considerable amount of good will and political capital in his mishandling of the issue.”
Gov. Daniels, livid that Ballard publicly shot down Daniels’ flawed CIB rescue plan, threw the mayor, not under a bus, but a speeding locomotive. “I’ll be here three-and-a-half more years, and I don’t want to see another CIB bill,” Daniels told the Star.
Democratic House Speaker Pat Bauer piled on telling the Louisville Courier Journal, “That thing was not well done from the very get go.”
State Senator Greg Taylor, adequately described the mess Mayor Ballard created, telling the Courier Journal, “This isn’t a band-aid. It’s a piece of tape that doesn’t even have a sticky side.”
And we’ve got 30 more months of a Ballard mayoralty? Maybe the mayor can take a lesson from Sarah Palin. Hint…
See ‘ya next week!
