Incumbent Iowa Governor Chet Culver is calling for a 4% spending increase in 2011-12 to provide between $100 million and $150 million for education, but tax critics and Republicans are charging it’s a repeat of moves Culver previously made, when subsequent budgets cuts he ordered forced property taxpayers to pick up the difference.
Even school leaders are somewhat skeptical, after seeing Culver increase education funding last year, only to order 10%, across-the-board budget cuts in October when revenue estimates indicated the state budget had gone into the red, the Des Moines Register reported. In response, many school boards raised property taxes to make up the difference.
"I think the big fear everybody has … is if the economy doesn't continue to get better, are we going to be faced with more midyear cuts?" West Des Moines Superintendent Tom Narak told the newspaper.
Currently, state aid represents 87.5% of Iowa’s K-12 education funding, while the rest comes from property tax levies.
Culver, a first-term Democrat, will face former Republican Gov. Terry Branstad in the Nov. 2 election.
House Republican Leader Kraig Paulsen said Culver "has a history of making big commitments for education funding, while in the end not fulfilling those commitments and instead pushing the payment onto the backs of the property taxpayers,” the Globe Gazette newspaper of Mason City reported. In fiscal 2010, Paulsen said education ended up being underfunded by $270 million while the current budget year fell about $170 million short of the state aid target – which prompted school districts to push for local property tax increases to cover the shortfalls.
