Waylon Brown: Senate passes bills to ease school fund restrictions

By Sen. Waylon Brown
R-St. Ansgar

What a beautiful spring we are having across the state of Iowa! The blooming flowers and green grass make it hard to stay inside on these warm sunny days.

At the Capitol last week the Senate debated House File 564. This bill addressed school funding flexibility. This is especially important for rural schools as it allows new uses for specific funding received by school districts and requires the state Board of Education to give deference to local school boards when the Board of Education adopts rules.

It allows school boards to determine how money is spent by lifting restrictions previously put on a series of funds for education. Local school boards know what is best for their school district and this bill allows for that.

The bill applies to funding related to professional development, at-risk/dropout prevention, preschool and student activities. It permits the purchase of textbooks and curriculum materials from the professional development fund if they include professional development as part of the cost, and allows for preschool funding to be used for age-specific playground equipment and translation services for preschool students.

THE SENATE ALSO debated House File 565, another bill giving more flexibility to our schools. The bill allows for the creation of a Flexibility Account within the general fund of each school district.

This fund can be used to collect unexpended and unobligated funds from a few different sources of categorical funding. This also allows the district to use those funds for purposes of the original source or other general fund purposes.

The account, as a part of the school district’s general fund, would consist of unused funds from the Home School Assistance Program, preschool funds and professional development funds. Those funds could then be used for preschool programming, professional development purposes, Home School Assistance Program purposes, at-risk/dropout prevention programming, Talented and Gifted programming, or other general fund purposes.

Both HF 564 and HF 565 passed the Senate unanimously. These bills are great steps forward to give our school districts more control over the dollars they receive for their schools.

I also hope everyone had a happy Easter. This is such a great time to enjoy time with friends and families.

Waylon Brown is the vice chairman of the Agriculture Committee and serves on the Labor and Business Relations, Transportation, State Government, and Ways and Means committees. Additionally, he is the vice chairman of the Agriculture and Natural Resources Appropriations Subcommittee.