Lawmakers Continue Collecting Information To Address School Funding Issues  

Lawmakers at this year’s regular legislative session largely failed to address a school funding formula that hasn’t been updated in decades.  

At an interim meeting in Canaan Valley State Park Monday, lawmakers heard from school district treasurers about how the formula falls short. 

J. P. Mowery, treasurer for Pendleton County Schools, said that while solutions like a 1,400 student funding floor that the legislature implemented in 2008, there are still counties falling through the formula’s cracks. 

“A 1,500 student enrollment county, let’s say a Roane County, which is about 1,500 students, gets the same funding for personnel as a single large high school in a larger county,” he said. “If I’m a Parkersburg High School, 1,300 to 1,500 students, and we’re getting funded based upon enrollment with a formula that funds upon enrollment, it’s just a big disparity. The more economies of scale you have built in, if your people live closer together, and you can maximize class sizes and transportation, then yeah, it’s easier, and that doesn’t mean you don’t have other issues. You do have other issues, but in terms of just providing the basics, it’s a challenge.” 

James Butts, treasurer for Berkeley County Schools, told the Joint Standing Committee on Education that declining enrollment and increased staffing requirements for special education mean all counties in the state have more staff than the school funding formula accounts for.  

“Fifty-four the 55 counties are over formula on the professional side, all 55 counties are over formula on the service side, and 35 counties are over on step five, which is your support personnel,” he said.  

Butts and others identified spending on special education as the number one issue to be addressed, a topic lawmakers focused on at last month’s House only interim meetings.  

Melanie Meadows, director of finance for Kanawha County Schools, said the county has to cover a $7 million shortfall of state funds for its 5,000 special education students. 

“Why is this happening? Well, primarily for us, it’s the specific staffing requirements, the individual age, the speech language pathologist, occupational therapy, (physical therapy),” she said. “Some of the students have specific transportation needs, they need specific equipment. Certain student needs require certain classrooms, you know, a sink in the bathroom, or a sink in the classroom, or a bathroom in the classroom, those sorts of things, and those construction costs increase.” 

Monday House Education Chair Del. Joe Statler, R-Monongalia, reiterated his commitment to leave no stone unturned to find a solution to school funding.  

“I am not going to allow any piece of information to be buried beneath something that we can’t find, if at all possible,” he said. “I encourage you all to keep this dialog open and get the questions to us, because we’re thinking on everything we can, we’re reaching out to the systems every day, we’re reaching out to the association, we’re reaching out to all corners that we can to try to find the answers.”