The chart in this article is worth a 1,000 words - js - During their first meeting since the end of session, the Senate Education committee met to discuss two of their interim charges. During the hearing, the committee heard from a number of charter school advocates, many of whom spoke about the need for facility funding for charter schools. During testimony, several members of the committee pointed out the State currently fails to provide adequate funding for our traditional public school facilities, and they could not be more correct.  

Following the Edgewood IV case, the Legislature created the Instructional Facilities Allotment (IFA) in 1995 and the Existing Debt Allotment (EDA) in 1999. In 1999-2000, these programs were funded at a guaranteed yield of $35 per ADA per guaranteed level. At the time this was considered to be good because 91% of the children were "in the system"--in other words, they resided in districts with a wealth level per student low enough to receive some state assistance on facilities. Fast forward a decade and a half and now roughly 43% of our children are in the system, and we have seen no increase in the guaranteed level.

Take a look at the chart below which illustrates the increase of bond payments on our taxpayers, and the staggering decrease in the level of State assistance. The Senators were right, we need to take care of our commitments now before we even consider moving forward with facility funding for the charter schools.