Duneland School Superintendent Drik Baer said he will watch with “great interest” a lawsuit that’s been filed against the state of Indiana over the state’s school funding formula.

Three school corporations -- Hamilton Southeastern Schools in Fishers, Franklin Township Community Schools in Indianapolis and the Middlebury Communtiy Schools in Middlebury -- this morning filed a suit claiming that the state’s school funding formula “lacks uniformity, is unconstitutional and negatively affects schools with growing enrollments.”

“Indiana’s complicated and inconsistent school funding formula distributes more money to schools with declining enrollments and less to schools with growing enrollments. This means schools like ours have to do more and more each year with less and less,” Hamilton Southeastern Superintendent Brian Smith said in a press release.

The complaint is hardly news to Duneland.

In December, Baer and Assistant Superitnendet Dave Pruis described Indiana’s method of funding public schools as convoluted and full of inequities. At that time, projections showed that Duneland would get $6,080 in state funding per pupil, below the state average of $6,995. Other area school systems, by contrast, were projected to get much more: Gary, $11,535 per pupil; Michigan City, $7,947; Lake Station, $8,213, and East Chicago, $10,158.

In addition to the per pupil funding disparity, schools statewide are now having to make cuts in the wake of the state’s reduction of nearly $300 million for public schools beginning in January. For Duneland, that cut amounts to about $1.6 million in direct state funding, in addition to a shortfall of about $3 million in the budget that was approved for this year.

When asked if it’s possible that Duneland might join the lawsuit filed by the other schools, Baer wouldn’t speculate. He noted that he has not yet even seen the complaint.

The three school corporations said in their press release that years ago, the state began using an average of past enrollments in place of current enrollments to determine per pupil funding, a practice referred to as the “de-ghoster.” The schools say this practice artificially inflates the enrollments for schools with declining enrollments, meaning that they receive funding for more students than they enroll. Fundamentally, the money does not follow the child, their press release states.

The Franklin Township schools recently eliminated 80 positions, 54 of which were certified teaching positions, according to the press release.

　Posted 2/23/2010