As the General Assembly works on its budget, the “rebenchmarking” of the educational Standards of Quality looms large. This Constitutionally mandated process recalculates how much Virginia school districts receive in some $6.2 billion in Direct Aid to Public Education dollars distributed by the state.
As I’ve often observed before, this rebenchmarking process represents one of the greatest inter-regional transfers of wealth in the state. By a complicated process, it punishes municipalities that choose to spend more local tax dollars on tax education. Each time the SOLs are rebenchmarked, the more dramatic the redistribution gets. Accordingly, it is instructive to see what happened when the SOLs were last rebenchmarked, in 2006. Many Virginia cities and counties enjoyed such a windfall of state revenue that they could cut their contributions of local tax dollars.
Chris Braunlich, a Fairfax resident and regular contributor to Bacon’s Rebellion, has documented this perverse effect. You can view the full document here. Here are some highlights:
In 2006, the City of Lexington received $1,139 in additional state funds per pupil — and cut their own contribution by $446 per pupil.
The City of Covington received $796 per pupil more from the state, and cut its local contribution by $644.
My home county, Henrico, an affluent suburban jurisdiction, received $423 more per pupil and cut its local contribution by $53.
Chesterfield County, the fourth most populous jurisdiction in Virginia, received $415 more per pupil and cut its own contribution by $239.
If Northern Virginia taxpayers want to know how they’re getting shafted in Richmond, this is where they ought to be looking. As a Henrico resident, I’m a beneficiary of the funding formula. But that doesn’t make it right. This formula is broken. Lil Tuttle with the Clare Booth Luce Policy Institute has suggested a formula that makes far more sense. If lawmakers sincerely want to fix public education — as opposed to perpetuate the current boondoggle — they could start here.
(Hat tip: The blogger known as Too Many Taxes.)