Local

Report: State Not Adequately Funding Schools

September 24th, 2013

Georgia school districts have been struggling with shrinking budgets for the past several years. A recent report from the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute says that’s partly due to inadequate state funding.

Listen to the audio version of this story.

Georgia school systems have two main funding sources. The first is local property taxes, which have steadily declined. The second source is a state funding mechanism called the Quality Basic Education formula, or QBE. That includes factors such as numbers of students and proportions of economically disadvantaged students. The QBE has also declined, according to GBPI education policy analyst Claire Suggs, who authored the report.

“We found at the state level that across the state, state funding has fallen about 15% since 2002,” Suggs says.

Suggs concedes money has been tight across the board, as the state has struggled to recover from the Great Recession. But, she says, schools’ needs are increasing while money isn’t.

“It does speak to legislative priorities and decisions that the legislature has made about how they’re going to spend money and also their willingness to look at revenues,” she says.

State lawmakers say they’re working on a solution. Rep. Brooks Coleman (R-Duluth) chairs the House Education committee. He says the General Assembly has tried to boost QBE when possible.

“We’ve been rolling all additional money into QBE and not in these special projects that’s happened in the past,” Coleman says. “That’s helping some. We’re rolling things like transportation into the QBE. That’s been outside the budget in the past. And, we need some additional money. And we’re going to be looking and making some recommendations through the budget office of what we think we need to do.”

The QBE hasn’t changed much since 1985. But Coleman says it could this legislative session. He says lawmakers will hold a series of listening sessions around the state to help them determine educational priorities. He says that could lead to reform.