Education funding in the Belmont-Redwood Shores School District is getting tighter. The District spends 9% less on education per student today than it did in 2007-2008. Based on recent projections (BRSSD 2012-2013 2nd Interim Budget, March 7, 2013, combined with our current projections of School-Force and PTA donations), further decline is expected in education spending per student, even after the passage of Proposition 30. Spending for the 2015-2016 school year is forecasted at nearly 12% lower than 2007-2008.
Education spending at BRSSD has dropped from close to $10,000 per student per year ($9,949 in the 2007-2008 school year) to $8,842 per student during 2011-2012, and is projected to decline further to $8,776 per student in 2015-2016 (based on the District’s planned spending).To complicate matters, the District’s current spending plan has been written to minimize impact to school programs, meaning in order to achieve even these spending levels will require continued deficit spending over at least the next 3 years, depleting the district’s financial reserve fund. If the district were to try to run a balanced budget every year, spending per student would drop even further – to $7,816 by 2015-2016.
Enrollment Growth
Many factors have contributed to the decline in per-student education spending over the years, which include state education funding decisions, home values (indirectly through property tax revenues), and labor costs. A key driver for BRSSD is the massive growth in student enrollment in our district. BRSSD served 2,616 enrolled students during the 2007-2008 school year, while at present, there are 3,597 students enrolled in the district (a 37.5% increase in just 5 years). And by 2015-2016, enrollment is projected to increase further to 3,851 students at BRSSD’s six elementary schools and one middle school. While this enrollment growth reflects the attractiveness of our communities, it also creates challenges for our schools, which are currently funded through the California Department of Education’s “Basic Aid” model. Basic Aid districts receive education revenues in proportion to their collected property taxes, not in proportion to the number of students enrolled in the district, so increases in enrollment without corresponding increases in property tax revenue cause districts such as ours to suffer an effective decrease in available funding on a per-student basis.
Parcel Taxes
A second driver for the projected decline in funding per student is the scheduled stoppage of the Measure G parcel tax in 2015. This tax, which extends for a period of 10 years in starting in 2005, generates nearly $1.2 Million, or ~$325 per student based on current enrollment, per year for education. The current projections exclude funds from Parcel tax G beginning in the 2015-2016 school year.
Deficit Spending
Since 2011-2012, the Belmont-Redwood Shores School District has operated under budget deficits, and has drawn from its reserve funds to cover these deficits. While this approach has ensured that critical educational programs are not disrupted, the approach is not sustainable. As of the close of the 2011-2012 school year, the district’s total audited reserves were approximately $4.5 Million. However, with a projected deficit for the 2012-2013 school year of $2.5 Million, plus additional deficit spending of nearly $7.5 Million over the subsequent 3 years, the district will risk insolvency if it is unable to raise revenues or make further cost reductions.We have created a “zero deficit” spending projection, which reduces spending in each year to match only the projected revenues. In this scenario, spending per student drops to $7,816 in the 2015-2016 school year.
See Graphic: Revenue vs. Planned Spending, Enrollment, and Education Spending per Student
The figure on the left shows BRSSD revenues and expenditures from 2007-2008 through 2015-2016, including donations and direct funding from PTAs. The middle figure shows historical and projected student enrollment in the district over the same time period. The rightmost figure displays historical and projected education spending per student, both under the current plan as well as under the zero-deficit scenario.
The data sheet Belmont-Redwood Shores Public Schools: School Funding History and Projection provides additional detail.We at School-Force believe that students in our district today should be offered the same high-quality education that their predecessors received just a few years ago. While we may be able to achieve this at lower cost than we did in 2007-2008, there is still a significant gap to close to ensure that our district is able to maintain reasonable class sizes and fund important programs such as technology, music, art, sports, libraries, reading specialists, and counselors without depleting its reserves.
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