A pleasant way to fund schools?

Is there anyone who enjoys the annual building of budgets? Doesn’t matter which side of the ledger you’re on. It’s no fun having to make requests of those who hold the purse strings. It’s no fun (we assume) to say no to those requests.

That’s true, at least, for some members of the Mecklenburg Board of Commissioners, who are proposing a change in how the county budgets its money for Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools.

As the Observer’s Jonathan McFadden reports, District 1 representative Jim Puckett wants the county to start giving the district a set percentage of its annual budget, which runs about $1.6 billion. Currently, CMS makes budget requests each year, including requests for special projects, and commissioners decide what they want to fund.

Puckett says his proposal wouldn’t necessarily lessen how much the county gives CMS each year. It would just streamline the process. There are two advantages to doing so, commissioners say. One seems more valid.

First, CMS would have a set figure to work with each year instead of waiting for a yes or no from the county on individual requests. That could provide the district with a more predictable sense of money coming in, which allows for better planning.

As it is, CMS is often left scrambling on items such as teacher hiring, primarily because the state – which provides the biggest share of schools funding – drags its feet on its own budget decisions each summer in Raleigh. We’ve recommended in the past that state lawmakers commit to letting school districts know earlier what they’re receiving. A set figure from Mecklenburg also might be helpful to CMS.

Commissioners see another benefit to changing the process: It would ease the annual budget tension between the board and CMS. Not coincidentally, commissioners rarely come out of that back-and-forth looking good in the public eye. “More than half of the tax dollars in Mecklenburg County go to education,” District 2 commissioner George Dunlap said. And still: “People are not satisfied.”

It’s a bit of wishful thinking to assume Puckett’s proposal would change that. While the board might avoid the annual tug-of-war with CMS, there would still be plenty of opportunities for commissioners to be the perceived villains. The first, of course, would be when the board decides what that set budget percentage should be. CMS would surely request a number that would accommodate current expenses and future wants. Commissioners would surely come up with a more conservative figure. We’re guessing that school officials aren’t going to just shrug if things don’t go their way.

Another worry: If CMS growth were to suddenly explode, would the county budget also grow enough to provide CMS the funding increase it needs?

Still, Puckett’s proposal is promising, especially if it includes a mechanism to revisit the set percentage every three or five years. That would accommodate the possibility of unforeseen changes in CMS.

Would it lead to harmony between commissioners and the school district? Probably not. But it could make an unpleasant process a little less so.

This story was originally published January 8, 2016 at 5:13 PM with the headline "A pleasant way to fund schools?."