By Joe Younker, Iowa City
Public school advocates have argued that a 2 percent increase in state funding isn’t enough. Class sizes are growing. Programs are being cut. Teachers are leaving. The funding formula is broken. That’s what they say, and they’re right.
And then there’s the Iowa City Community School District.
Last August, district administrators transferred $10 million from an insurance fund into the general fund to cover payroll. They did not tell the school board. The board found out five months later, when they were asked to retroactively approve a loan they didn’t know existed.
The superintendent’s explanation: he thought it was a “normal course of action.”
It gets worse. The district spent $13.5 million more this fiscal year than it budgeted, driven by a payroll increase three times more than anticipated. The quarterly financial reports presented to the board omitted four funds — including the insurance fund. Starting cash balances were off by $5 million.
Now the district has maxed out its cash reserve. It is taking out a new $3 million short-term loan — on top of the $10 million it is still repaying. The district is borrowing money to cover its current bills. This is more than a cash flow issue.
And next year’s proposed $8 million in cuts will likely not be enough. The superintendent has said so himself.
Most of those cuts fall on teachers, classroom staff, and students. As Angie Rogers said at a board meeting: “Approximately $5 million in identified cuts directly affect classrooms. By contrast, administrative reductions are described as approximately $2 million, but those reductions appear far less specific and largely contingent on reassignment or attrition …. Students and teachers will feel these cuts immediately; central administration will not.”
Which brings us to the board.
Seven elected officials are responsible for financial oversight of this district. They approved a $279 million budget. They received quarterly financial reports — reports that, we now know, were missing funds and carried incorrect cash balances. They did not catch it. A district parent caught it. (Thanks, Emily Campbell.)
To their credit, several board members have expressed genuine frustration. One called the situation a “chaotic mess.” Another called classroom teacher reductions a “hard no.” Board member Lisa Williams put it plainly: “It seems like we wait until we’re in crisis mode, and then we do this big cut.” She’s right. And she’s been on this board long enough to have watched it happen twice.
Good sentiments. But sentiments expressed after the crisis has already arrived are not oversight. Oversight is what prevents the crisis. We deserve board members who will demand accurate, complete financial information. And insist on accountability when that information turns out to be wrong.
The board now has an opportunity to demonstrate understanding of its role. That means requiring monthly budget-to-actual expense reports — a reform board member Williams herself proposed. It means scrutinizing every assumption behind the numbers that produced this crisis, not just the line items that result from it. And it means being honest with the community about whether $8 million in cuts is the end of this story, or the beginning. Let’s see how they respond to the opportunity.
This all matters beyond Iowa City.
Enrollment in public districts is declining. Every family that looks at what has happened in the ICCSD and decides to take their child, and the funding that follows that child, somewhere else makes the hole deeper. Governance failures don’t just cost money. They cost students. And fewer students means less state funding, which means more cuts, which means more families leave. Iowa’s school voucher program contributes to the diversion of public dollars to private schools. So does a self-inflicted “chaotic mess.”
Those who want to defund public education couldn’t have scripted this better if they’d tried.
Iowa’s public schools genuinely need more funding. That argument should be played in heavy rotation at high volume.
But that argument is a hard sell when Iowa’s second-largest district can’t account for where the money already went — and is now borrowing to make payroll.
The district’s students deserve better than this. So do taxpayers. And so does every school advocate who has spent years trying to convince Des Moines that public education is worth investing in.
And none of this should be accepted as “normal.”
