Jaeger: Proposed school funding increase ‘very low’

By Nick Joos

Express Editor

Last week, the Iowa Senate was the 

first legislative branch to pass a proposed funding increase for Iowa’s public schools, and the number was met with concern by area school leaders. 

 he Senate on Feb. 10 passed a measure that would increase per-pupil funding by 1.75% for public school districts from last year’s allocation. It passed along mostly party lines, with three Republicans joining Democrats in opposition. The bill also provides an additional $5 per pupil to the rate, raising Iowa’s per-pupil funding from $7,988 in the current fiscal year to $8,133 in the 2027 fiscal year. 

Some Senate Republicans said the proposal gives a boost to K-12 education funding. Democrats and education advocates disagreed, saying the increase would not keep pace with the nation’s inflation rate, which in 2025 was 2.7%. Final state funding levels will not be clear until a bill passes both the Iowa House and Iowa Senate and is signed by Gov. Kim Reynolds.

Iowa Sen. Carrie Koelker, R-Dyersville, whose district includes the entirety of Jones County and most of rural Jackson and Dubuque counties, voted in favor of the bill, as did Sen. Dan Zumbach, R-Ryan, whose district includes Delaware County. 

The Iowa House has yet to either respond to the Senate bill or come up with one of its own. 

Koelker said she believes the state adequately funding public schools and said legislators deserve more appreciation. 

“The media, as well as the school leaders, are making noise with the far left as they do every year,” Koelker told the Express. “There are some rare notes of appreciation for what we do for education. It seems odd to me, with nearly 55% of state funding going to education, (that) the appreciation is missing. Don’t listen to the rhetoric that we are underfunding education and starving our schools. 

Koelker said at a legislative forum in Monticello in late January that she believes all facets of government -- including public schools -- need to tighten their purse strings and reduce residents’ tax burden.

“We need to get a reign on funding,” Koelker said. “At every level, schools, cities and counties. We are trying to control spending because we can’t expect Iowans to keep up with inflation, whether it’s property taxes or at the grocery store.”

Iowa’s public schools are funded through a combination of state aid, local property taxes and the federal government. 

The increase in state aid given to schools is called Supplemental State Aid (SSA) and is delivered to districts on a per-pupil basis. 

School officials react

Monticello Community School District Brain Jaeger characterized the 1.75% funding increase as “very low funding.”

“What is the increase in the cost of living? It’s more than 1.75%. We have been averaging 2% (SSA) over the last dozen years,” Jaeger said before issuing a warning that continued SSA numbers could lead to drastic changes in the district down the road. 

“If our actions are our language, we need to look at what the state’s actions are,” Jaeger said. “And they’re saying we need to make cuts. They are not funding us to maintain where we are.”

Midland’s superintendent, Doug Koerperich, said he was appreciative of a 1.75% increase after the rhetoric by some local legislators leading up to the session pointed to no funding increase at all. 

“That is much more positive than the 0% SSA that was very openly shared by our legislators earlier this year,” Koerperich told the Express in an email.

“A 1.75% increase to SSA would equate to a funding increase of about $140 per student. This would be a modest growth, to help offset the rising operational costs.”

Jaeger said that messaging from legislators spoke volumes.

“There wasn’t any veiled messaging. They said we might get 0 (SSA), and if you get any more than that you’ll be happy,” Jaeger said. “Well, we won’t be happy. I don’t want to say money fixes all problems, but if we could just maintain where we are and give raises to (staff) to cover cost of living expenses … we aren’t trying to make people wealthy or being greedy, but we want to use common sense and give people what we can.” 

A mechanism in Iowa’s school funding code called a budget guarantee is in place to ensure that districts with declining enrollment -- Monticello being among them -- are funded at least at 101% of last fiscal year’s budget. If SSA does not increase a school’s budget by at least 1%, the district has to raise its local property taxes to make up the difference, Jaeger said. 

Numbers shared with the Monticello School Board at its recent meeting say that with a 1.75% SSA, the district would receive $77,292 in new money from the state and would need to receive an additional $66,999 from budget-guarantee funds to land at 1% total increase.

Jaeger said for the district to not need the budget guarantee, SSA would need to be at least 2.64%.

“What happens when they don’t fund you well enough, we need to backfill that amount,” Jaeger said at last week’s school board meeting. “…The state doesn’t come in with that money, it becomes local taxpayers that have to pay for it … there will probably be over 200 school districts in Iowa out of 330 that will (need) budget guarantee, and it’s a shame that’s where we are, but that’s our reality. And we can only operate with reality.”

“That’s a 1% guarantee increase rather than what we really need to meet inflationary costs and things like that,” Monticello School Board member Tony Amsler said of the budget guarantee. “I just want to make sure people understand that when they say ‘budget guarantee,’ that money is coming form the pockets of Jones County property owners.”

The Senate’s SSA bill in its current form proposes this budget guarantee -- which would see an estimated $47 million going to those districts with declining enrollment this year -- would come out of the state’s general fund and not come in the form of a local property tax increase. 

If SSA is 0%, Jaeger noted, the Monticello district would need take in an additional $200,000 to reach the budget guarantee amount. A property tax increase in the district to reach this total would be an estimated 45 cents per $1,000 of taxable value, based on 2026 valuations, Jaeger said. 

The Iowa Capital Dispatch and staff writer Brittany Nopar contributed to this report.