Agenda 05-23-2019 Item 1-B - Public School Forum Local School Finance Study

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1 REDUCED PURCHASING POWER RESULTS IN INADEQUATE RESOURCES IN WILKES COUNTY ............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................. "One of the things that people who look at public education Textbook funding has been down since the Great Recession, finance struggle with is that when both sides of an issue when lawmakers nearly zeroed out that line item to cope comment on school funding,they are both right,"said with decreased state revenues. It's crept back up since then, Wilkes County Schools' chief finance officer, Seth Prevette. but it's still not at pre-recession levels and in many cases "For example,when the state says they are pumping more district finance officers need to dip into that line item to money into schools--if you look at total dollars,that's true. purchase digital resources today.There's not enough fund- But local school finance officers say that while there are ing for the two, says Prevette. more dollars,those dollars don't purchase what they did previously," said Prevette. "In Wilkes County,where we have a lot of technology capa- bilities,we have traditionally taken the textbook funds and Prevette says increases in teacher salaries, retirement and used them for software and devices," said Prevette. "When health insurance costs toward which local districts must the funding was cut back in the 2008 timeframe it hurt our make contributions have eaten into other parts of public ability to make those purchases. More recently the ability to school budgets,and it's becoming very difficult to avoid a transfer textbooks for purchasing of technology devices has scenario where classrooms are impacted. been removed. That further hurts our ability to purchase those type of items." Additionally,there are many parts of the budget that are simply inadequately funded by the state. Like Duplin County, Wilkes also has a smaller tax base on which it can rely to come up with local funds to fill in for "There is not much money for instructional supplies,"said decreased state investments.Taxing its residents at a rate Prevette. "When we take that allotment and allocate it to of$0.66, it can only provide local funding at an amount of schools,and all of your classroom teachers send a list home $1,238 per student, roughly half of what Wake County can to parents saying we need you to go to Walmart and pur- spend on a per student basis. chase all these things for your kids--you know at that point, it's just not enough."