KASA Call to Action on the State Budget

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 The Kentucky Association of School Administrators issued the following call to action today that may reflect the urgency of education funding: 

“Increase SEEK base funding in HB 192, the FY22 budget. The SEEK program is the mechanism we use to fund Kentucky’s public schools. Raises for teachers and support staff, program enhancement for students, and providing adequate operational expenses for school districts are best achieved by a funding increase provided in the base SEEK program.”


KASA’s legislative priority for P-12 education funding during the 2021 session of the General Assembly is: Commit all growth in state revenues to increasing the SEEK base and restore SEEK and all other flexible focus funds (professional development, safe schools, textbooks, FR/YSC’s, etc.) to levels that provide constitutionally adequate funding to support academic improvement for all Kentucky students. 

Adequate funding for elementary and secondary education is a constitutional mandate, and it is exclusively the responsibility of the General Assembly. KASA believes the General Assembly must act immediately and forcefully to reverse more than a decade of funding neglect that has been imposed upon Kentucky’s public schools. 

The critical importance and magnitude of this priority cannot be overstated. Thirteen years after our country’s most serious economic crisis in more than 70 years, funding for Kentucky’s public schools remains substantially below the levels that preceded that crisis. It is an undeniable truth that education funding in Kentucky is less adequate in 2021 than it was in 2008. 

To give context to the degree of inadequacy that exists, KASA made an examination of the Kentucky’s education funding picture in FY 2009 (the state budget adopted immediately prior to the 2008 severe economic recession), compared to the FY 2021-22 budget currently under consideration by the General Assembly. That comparison shows the following:

SELECT KENTUCKY P-12 EDUCATION BUDGET HISTORY

CategoryFY 2009FY 2022% Change
    
Budgeted General Fund ($)9,082,339,40011,648,243,30028.3 
    
SEEK Base ($)2,279,779,6001,972,333,100(13.5)
    
SEEK Base/General Fund (%)25.116.9(32.7)
    
Per Pupil SEEK ($)390940403.3

 






The story told by these numbers is dismal. Base SEEK funding as a percentage of total general fund appropriations has declined by almost 33% in 13 years. This means that other areas of state general fund appropriations have been increasing at a far greater rate than education funding. And the increase in per pupil SEEK funding during that 13-year period equals only 3.3%.

These numbers represent actual dollars appropriated. When the reality of 13 years of inflation is factored in, the erosion of funding for elementary and secondary education becomes even more egregious.

Click here for email and other contact information for your legislators.

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