Easing Federal and State Regulations

By Sandra Crandall

The federal government is fully committed to maintaining its influence in education. Supporting education, providing incentives and national leadership on educational issues is worthy. However, much of what the federal government does is at the expense of local control.

One of the most prominent examples is in the area of special education. The Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) has mandates. To carry out many of these mandates, money is needed. The federal government's intent was to fund these mandates at 40% of the cost. In reality, they only fund at 19%. The additional 21% of the costs of these mandates come from the general fund. General budget funds are used to educate the rest of the student population. Local control of the school board over the entire budget is lessened as fewer funds are available in the general fund. The federal government needs to fully fund special education mandates.

State government, to their credit, has given some slight and one time relief. They have allowed certain monies to be transferred to other funds at the discretion of local school districts. As long as the funding challenge continues, this flexibility needs to be maintained and expanded.

Redundancy of services is, at times, prevented from being addressed because of labor codes, education codes or state regulations. Take for example, the upkeep of school grounds. Our city has lawn mowers, fuel pumps and people who mow grass at all the city maintained parks. Some of these parks are adjacent to school grounds. The workers can wave to each other when mowing. Here are two governmental entities with similar capital outlay of equipment and manpower. Yet, conversations about these redundancies of services and possible cooperative, efficient sharing of resources, can not take place because of codes and regulations.

When both entities - the city and the school district - are struggling, common sense should prevail and the regulations should be eased or eliminated for mutual benefit.

Focus should be placed on spending scarce education dollars where they matter most. Efficient government needs to exist and local school boards need to be able to make the decisions on budgetary matters without undo regulations, codes, and laws interfering. Those who are most familiar with the challenges being faced should be able to take the lead in deciding where monies should be spent to solve them.

With the strong public support our school district enjoys, we need to assert our leadership role as a School Board. When we win the battle of ideas with the public, the politicians will follow.