Oregonian Article on this "quirk" in the state law.
http://www.oregonlive.com/education/index.ssf/2015/04/27_million_windfall_quirk_in_s.html2.6 MILLION DOLLARS?Apparently, under current law, when a District looses students from a Charter school the District gets the extended ADMw for those students, even if the students move over to the District school.
Why hasn't our school board (or the public) heard about or discussed in any public meeting that we could receive this 2.6 million dollars? How did we not know we could be getting this much money? One way or another.... why is this not something our school board and public should know about now. We should be expecting to have some discussions or hear what our board thinks we could do with these funds to help with such "SERIOUS" facility needs?
When asked about this money in the February 2015 meeting, the public heard we might use it and "back fill" any budget holes ( One hole likely will be the Small School Funding hit if the state sticks with its decision to remove that from CSD. ) Read here:
http://corbettoregon.com/forum/index.php?topic=902.0However, if the district is saying things like "backfill" then doesn't that imply that maybe someone at the district actually did know we would be getting something beyond our normal budget from the State? And even backfilling the total $580,000 we are currently being told by the state we are losing, for our small school funding,
that still leaves over two million dollars ..... ... Shouldn't we all know about this so that we can track how it is spent .... or have some ability to hear discussions by our board on what to do with it? Is this a secret? Why?
The below information was taken from the February 2014 regular school board meeting notes provided each month by Karina Lande. She audio records each meeting and attends most all meeting s in the district and has for years. These notes are available at the below link, for anyone that would like to find out more: http://corbettpost.com/csd-board-notes-2-18-2015/____________________________________________
EMAIL TO BOARD DIRECTOR PURVINE:Hi Victoria,
I am reviewing audio from the February board meeting and I’m wondering if you could explain to me about this 2.6 million dollars? Why are we getting it? What is it supposed to be used for? How did you learn we were getting it when no one else seems to be talking about it? I’m just a bit confused and would appreciate your time explaining it to me if you can.
Thank You,
Karina Lande
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RESPONSE:Karina,
I went over the audio and I understand your question, because I was confused too.
The December 4, 2014 updated information from the Oregon Department of Education showed we have 1,923.94 weighted students in our District, when the budget was adopted the number of weighted students was 1,525.92.
Based on the difference in the numbers the District is scheduled to receive an additional one time dollar amount of around $2.6 million dollars.Why?
Because it turns out that under current law when a District looses students from a Charter school the District gets the extended ADMw for those students, even if the students move over to the District school.
My understanding had been that the students actually had to leave the District for the money to remain, as a protection against a rapid fall in student enrollment in a District, not in a school, so this was news to me. Apparently the law has been in effect for a while, though I understand it may change since you can see how this would affect the overall State funding for all Districts with Charters opening in larger numbers.
What I was trying to understand was where was the money since we are being told there are no significant changes to the budget, and I believe that is a significant amount of money.
With some back and forth with the District, and some clarifying conversations with others, I think I have a better grasp of the situation than I did at the Board meeting.
If you go to the ODE website and look-up the Small School Funding category, and then drop down to the Estimates and Warranties section, you will find the Districts listed Estimated Apportionment throughout the State. Corbett tends to fall at page 149 in each of these reports and they are listed out by month. Under the estimated apportionment you can see that the December 15, 2014 ODE state support is listed at $11,562,617 (
SEE BELOW IN BLUE) currently we are showing on the projected actual for the budget at $8,895,118 , which is where we started the school year.
So, why isn’t this considered a significant change to the budget when we have heard that the possible decision by ODE to remove the small school correction is? Because we haven’t done a supplemental budget to appropriate those dollars into the budget and the $580,000 for the small school correction is already part of the budget.
However, I feel it is important the Board discuss this dollar amount and find out what the community feels would be the best use of these dollars, and then direct the Superintendent on where to allocate these funds. I have asked that this be put on the March agenda as a discussion item.
Hope this answers your questions.
Victoria
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FOLLOW UP EMAIL TO BOARD DIRECTOR PURVINE:Victoria,
Thank you very much for your time responding to me. I have one more quick question if you don’t mind, that is does it matter how the money is spent? Any laws/policy governing that? Would it matter if it’s say spent on instruction vs facilities? Thanks again for sharing with me what you know!
Karina Lande
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DIRECTOR PURVINE'S RESPONSE: Karina,
I don’t know of any laws or policies regarding how it is spent. What I heard cautioned at training sessions is you don’t want to spend money on staff or programs with one time dollars, because next year the money won’t be there to continue what you’ve started, unless you think you can pass an operating levy to continue the changes.
Victoria
Link to the December ODE Estimated Apportionment is here: http://corbettpost.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/odedecappropriament.jpg