The Real Purpose of the Funding Formula: Setting up the Excuse of "But What Can We Do?"

Both Jennifer D. Jordan's funding formula advocacy in the news pages of the Projo…

An audience of 500 educators, politicians, child advocates and business leaders met at the Rhode Island Convention Center yesterday to discuss one of the most pressing education issues facing the state — developing and enacting a fair school funding formula.

…and Russell J Moore's more neutral coverage in the Warwick Beacon…

While a school funding formula that’s fair and equitable to all communities is the big catch phrase in the current political environment, some looking for reform believe the state’s education problems run much deeper.

…quote the same two Rhode Island Mayors, Providence's David Cicilline and Warwick's Scott Avedisian, who both favor the formula as the solution to Rhode Island's education problems…

"What we have in place right now is no formula,” said Providence Mayor David N. Cicilline. "It’s an unfair system. The status quo is not an option. We need to do something bold and different"…

"The financing governance is dysfunctional,” said Warwick Mayor Scott Avedesian. “We had a $600,000 deficit in the school budget this year, and they are estimating [an even larger] deficit for next year. So you can see the immediacy of the need for a formula.”

Why Mayor Cicilline favors a "funding formula" is obvious. He believes he has the political clout to rig the formula in his favor, guaranteeing that the statewide tax increases needed to implement the formula will be used to pay increased benefits to Providence.

But given the existing structure of Rhode Island's education finances -- with close to $7,000 per pupil paid to Providence and Pawtucket and a few other "distressed" communities, while less than half that amount is paid to most other communities in Rhode Island -- why would anyone outside of the half-dozen or so, mostly urban communities that receive the largest subsidies support the idea of a funding formula? There is simply no way for everyone to come out ahead. Either the new formula is going to increase the subsidies to Providence/Pawtucket/Central Falls and a few other "distressed" communities by increasing the costs to most other Rhode Island communities who will have to continue to pay for their own school systems while absorbing the costs of the increased subsidies, or the formula will reduce total costs to the smaller, less "distressed" communities by cutting the already generous subsidies to the current big beneficiaries like Providence, Pawtucket and Central Falls.

So how could a system of centrally planned, bureaucratic money shifting that the idea of a "funding formula" is ever build broad political support amongst political leaders across the state?

The answer is that, for many of Rhode Island's political leaders, the funding formula is not really about sensible finance. It is about an opportunity to defray responsibility. The purpose of the "funding formula" is not to make public education more affordable or more effective. It is to make education spending into an entitlement program, whether it is affordable or effective or not. With a "funding formula" in place, Rhode Island's political leaders won't ever have to entertain the thought of cutting spending or using creative, modern ideas to allocated resources more effectively; when the time comes to raise taxes to pay for the increased subsidies, they will have an item written into law that they can point to and say "But what can we do?" – "The law requires us to raise your taxes so we can send your money to other communities."

Sometimes, politics works in a way that leaders with apparently different interests align themselves in a way that's different from what's best for the people.