Iowa Education Groups Predict More Than 1,500 School Layoffs Likely

Six education groups held a press conference on Monday, April 5, and predicted that Iowa Governor Terry Branstad’s freeze on state spending for Iowa schools will make it necessary for schools to layoff more than 1,500 employees.

The six groups include: Area Education Agencies, the Iowa Association of School Boards, the Iowa State Education Association, the Parent Teacher Association, School Administrators of Iowa, and the Urban Education Network.

According to an article from the Associated Press, John Speer, head of the School Administrators of Iowa said the following, “Schools have already been through three years of budget cuts, and there’s nothing left to trim.”

According to Tim Albrecht, a spokesman for Branstad, the governor has been given a huge financial mess, and he has been asked by voters to resolve it fast.  Big increases in state aid were promised by previous governors and were not given, but this time, the schools will get the money they expect from the state.

A two year freeze on state aid to local schools was proposed by the governor, and while it passed in the Iowa House, the Iowa Senate voted for state aid to schools to be increased by two percent.  As the state is currently split on how it will assist schools in basic state aid, schools are scrambling to figure out how much to expect in their budgets for the upcoming year. Time will tell whether the budget for schools is increased by two percent or whether it remains frozen for the next two years, and what that might mean for over a thousand teachers and staff in Iowa schools.