I'll just come right out and say it: Chad Schuldt is right on school funding. Well, mostly right. I believe Chad supports the lawsuit by school districts against the state claiming the that the state Constitution has been violated because we are "inadequately" funding education. I believe this lawsuit is silly and is a waste of the state's time and money. We do not use judges to figure out what "adequate funding" means, and if you think funding is inadequate I have a suggestion: work harder getting people elected who agree with you.
But on the matter of reserves, Chad is correct. It seems disingenuous for the Governor to say that school districts should not keep such high reserves when the state has an enormous reserve. Granted, states need reserves in ways school districts do not. Still, there is a bit of a pot and kettle situation here. Also, Chad is correct that it is hard to hire people and make long term decisions based on one time money. No one wants to hire a math teacher only to fire him or her the next year because the budget went away. Further, one reason districts keep reserves is for anticipated budget cuts. If you are a school district with declining enrollment, and that's too many of our districts, you face ever dwindling budgets. That reserve can be used a later date to keep on staff or programming for at least a little while that you might otherwise have to give up. So the reserve exists as protection against anticipated budget shortfalls.
I get the Governor's point: the money was appropriated in order to be spent. But planning for a raining day is prudent budgeting that all governments do. Whether districts are reserving "too much" money is hard to say, but it is not necessarily inconsistent for a district to ask for more money while it is in the process of putting some in reserve.
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