Finance reform. Still confusing.

Perhaps you would enjoy coming to a school board meeting. Perhaps you would enjoy learning to speak Sanskrit.
That’s how some of us felt when Treasurer Dave Combs began to address the new state funding formula last Monday. All we know at this point is that supposedly we will be receiving more money the next two years than forecasted.
We are a long way from cashing those checks. A brief example cited will serve to share our bewilderment.
The current formula has various components based on each district’s specific details of those components. For instance; if one of the components is reimbursement for special education expenses in a certain category and based on the number of students we have in that category, it might be that the formula calls for us to receive $32,000 for that student.
If, however, the state is experiencing a budget difficulty, they may adjust the funding to give us only $26,000 for that student. Further, if owing to special circumstances related to the student’s needs and the availability and cost of the services we in fact experience a cost of $40,000, there may be yet another piece of the formula that calls for us to be reimbursed for “catastrophic expense” the difference between the $32,000 recognized and the $40,000 experienced. $8,000.
However, if again, the state is short of funds, we may only receive a few hundred dollars of the excess $8,000 that we paid in expenses. We are totally at the mercy of the state and their funding formula adjustments.
We have had and continue to have students whose educational cost to the district is in excess of $40,000. We continue to absorb those costs not reimbursed.
Herein lies our current mystery. Although we know there are 39 components to the new formula the old formula is totally scrapped, we do not know the details of the components, much less do we know the adjustments to those components for our district. That, as they say, is still a subject that is being “tweaked.”
There were a few non-regular attendees at last week’s board meeting. I made a point of asking one why he was in attendance. His only comment was to observe the total mystery surrounding the discussion of finances. In spite of many sessions with Mr. Combs on this subject I had to concur that this day’s discussion left me bewildered as well.
But take heart, there will come a day of reckoning when the dark curtain of the new funding formula will be removed and the components will be in plain view just as they are now for the current formula. One can but hope all the “tweaking” will produce a result that permits us to expand our services to all students and enhance the educational product of the Marietta City Schools.
The most enjoyable and encouraging piece of the meeting was the discussion of the Project Lead The Way program. This well attended and in demand engineering program is currently being taught at the high school with plans to begin that program in the middle school in the future. The objective is to interest more students in the engineering studies and get them on the path to a lifetime career in those fields.
Our Project Lead the Way program is now nationally credentialed and students can enter many colleges with up to 15 hours of college course work to their credit.
Instructor Steve Foutty confessed that the course work challenges him at times. Further, his students are happy to help him at those times. I wonder if they speak Sanskrit.