Liz McCormick Published

BOE Recommends Lawmakers Revisit State Aid Formula

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A committee appointed by the West Virginia Board of Education has spent the past 18 months studying how they can better provide services regionally to the county school systems. They presented the final report to lawmakers yesterday which included a recommendation for the upcoming session.

Tom Campbell, a member of the West Virginia Board of Education, recommends senators and delegates take a second look at the state aid formula this year. That formula determines how much state funding each county receives based on the number of students in their schools.

Campbell argued smaller counties are having trouble providing basic services because as their student population shrinks, so do their state dollars.

“There’s so much variation in the state,” noted Campbell, “and what’s been coming so much more different than it used to be is the difference in size of the small counties to the large counties. It’s a larger disparity, and the small counties are getting so small that there’s certain basic expenses that have to be provided.”

He says he’d like to see the legislature reconsider how much aid is going to those smaller counties regardless of the number of students they serve.