Where does this JCPS funding claim come from?
And, is an important source being largely overlooked?
A little while ago, Olivia Krauth, an education reporter at the Courier-Journal, posted this curious Tweet:
Federal funding makes up a whopping *checks notes* 0.5% of Kentucky’s largest district’s general fund. https://t.co/mrLdCZGThH
— Olivia Krauth (@oliviakrauth) July 8, 2020
That 0.5% figure sure looked low to me, so I pulled up the Kentucky Department of Education’s latest available district level Revenues and Expenditures Report, which is for the 2018-19 school year.
Here is what that report shows are the local, state and federal revenue totals for Jefferson County Public Schools (JCPS), which is the largest school district in Kentucky.
Total Local Revenue - $726,812,342
Total State Revenue - $608,233,465
Federal Revenue - $139,849,366
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Total Overall Revenue - $1,474,895,173
It turns out that the Federal Revenue makes up 9.48% of the Total Overall Revenue, which is a whole lot larger (almost 19 times larger) than 0.5%.
I have no idea where Krauth got her figure. While I have concerns about the accuracy of education fiscal reporting in all sources, the numbers I show above at least have been audited.
As a note, with the special Corona Virus funding for education that was recently added from the federal government, the situation for 2020-21 is probably going to tip still more towards the federal component making up even more of the overall total money pot for JCPS.BTW, JCPS is about to load a big tax increase on homeowners in its district, claiming the money is needed to build new schools. But, as you can see from the figures above, JCPS already is collecting a lot of money, nearly $1.5 billion, now. And, if they somehow misplaced most of the nearly $140 million they are getting now from the federal government, maybe that tax hike isn’t so critical. It might be a good idea for the district to provide more information to the voters, which it will have to do if a petition now collecting signatures gets enough people to sign up to put the measure on the November ballot. That doesn’t mean the district won’t be able to make its case, but with the financial quirks showing up even in the hands of local news reporters in the JCPS area, more questions are definitely in order.
Added at 12:20 pm Eastern on July 8, 2020
Ms. Krauth got back to me with this comment about her funding source.
But, as I pointed out when @Innes434 asked where the figure came from, it came from the district's budget docs.
Apparently my answer did not make it to the blog.
0.5% of JCPS' general fund is labeled as federal dollars. pic.twitter.com/RJzSa5IYYa— Olivia Krauth (@oliviakrauth) July 8, 2020
It seems that the “general fund” budget (which is only a projection, and tentative) only includes about $6 million in federal funding. So, it ignores nearly $134 million or so based on actual spending from the 2018-19 year. That’s a lot of money that doesn’t show. Getting back to Krauth’s original Tweet, which was a comment on President Trump saying he might take federal money away from states that don’t open schools next year, the loss would be a whole lot more than $6 million.
And, I’d like to learn more about how that $134 million or so in federal dollars that doesn’t show in the budget wheel (click on the link in the second Tweet to see that) fits into the JCPS system. That’s a lot of money not in sight in this discussion. Getting back to the original Krauth Tweet, if the district were to lose all federal money, it would be a much bigger loss than just $6 million.