Agenda - Item 1B - Public School Forum Local School Finance Study

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LOCAL FUNDS The nearly century-old division of state and local responsibility for school funding still shapes the way North Carolina pays for public education today, with 63 percent of instructional expenditures coming from the state and 98 percent of capital expenses paid at the local level. However, the division has eroded somewhat, with counties funding 16.3 percent of principal and assistant principal positions, 6.1 percent of teachers, 10.9 percent of teacher assistants, and 21.2 percent of professional instructional support personnel; and with the state paying 2 percent of capital expenses. Considering local expenditures on programs and personnel in 2015-16, the ten counties that spent the most per student averaged $3,103 per student compared to the ten that spent the least, which averaged $739 per student. That represents a gap of $2,364 — and 60 counties are below the state average of $1,596. The bottom seven counties combined spend $290 less than Orange County spends on its own. One of the primary challenges from the five low-wealth plaintiffs in the Leandro case dealt with the inequities between varying levels of county support for schools. However, the state Supreme Court ruled in 1997 that “the ‘equal opportuni- ties’ clause of Article IX, Section 2(1) of the North Carolina Constitution does not require substantially equal funding or educational advantages in all school districts. Consequently, the provisions of the current state system for funding schools which require or allow counties to help finance their school systems and result in unequal funding among the school districts of the state do not violate constitutional principles.” 9 < LOCAL SCHOOL FUNDING: IMPACTS ON SCHOOLS AND CLASSROOMS Differences in counties’ levels of investment in their school systems translate into dramatically different options at the school and classroom level. As an illus- tration, at a statewide average class size of 20 stu- dents per classroom, the ten counties that spend the most per student would spend, on average, $62,054 per classroom. By contrast, the ten counties that spend the least per child would spend, on average, $14,778 per classroom – a difference of $47,276 per classroom. At the state’s average elementary school size of 490 students, that translates to a difference of $1,158,271 per elementary school. At the state’s average high school size of 848, it translates to a difference of $2,004,518 per high school. FEDERAL FUNDS Resources from the federal government accounted for 11 percent of North Carolina public education spending on instructional expenses in 2015-16, and totaled $1,440,865,436. Federal resources are given to states in the form of direct grants, state applications, state plans, or a combination of the three.