The Iowa Legislature was able to pass an increase in State Supplemental Aid for public schools and Governor Kim Reynolds signed the bill into law for the next school year.

The House and Senate agreed on a three-percent increase in new funding, which District 24 Senator Jesse Green (R-Boone) says is the largest increase the Legislature has done since 2015. He tells Raccoon Valley Radio Republican lawmakers felt comfortable with allocating more money to public education because of better than expected revenues for the state. 

Greene County School District Superintendent Brett Abbotts anticipates about $200,000 of new money coming to the district. He says they are not in a position to hire additional staff, but this helps in terms of not having to reduce staff. 

Senator Green spoke about the flexibility of funding attached with the SSA bill that allows school districts to use different funds such as Teacher Leadership and Compensation, Talent and Gifted (TAG) program, and professional development funds.

“With some of these unused funds that might not go to these programs that some schools might not like the Teacher Learning program, but some of those unused funds within those silos, based on this bill that we passed this year, they can utilize those funds more for teacher’s salaries if they so choose or save that money for future purposes.” 

Abbotts says they have always been able to flex those kinds of accounts before for other expenses, however he cautions school districts to not do that, especially for raising teacher salaries.

“If we spend those to zero (dollars) they don’t replenish as quickly. It’s not a smart move for school districts to use that or just rely on that. For example, like we have a salary schedule so if we use those funds to provide an increase in teacher salaries, well in a year or two we’re going to have to figure out how are we going to utilize our general fund to maintain that because we can’t start taking money away from teachers, and we certainly wouldn’t do that.” 

Public school districts use the increase in SSA funding to help finalize their budgets that are supposed to be submitted to the state by April 15th.