Vouchers costing county schools $829,515 for year

A statewide analysis of the number of dollars being lost by each school district due to the Indiana voucher program reveals that the four Putnam County school corporations are losing more than $800,000 for the 2017-18 school year.

That Indiana Association of Public School Superintendents (IAPSS) analysis, distributed by IAPSS Executive Director J. T. Coopman, details $829,515 in total losses for Putnam County schools due to the voucher program this year.

Those losses are listed individually as:

-- Greencastle, $272,346.

-- North Putnam, $224,389.

-- South Putnam, $167,485.

-- Cloverdale, $165,285.

Among other area school corporations, the losses are similar.

Montgomery County schools are losing a total of $891,688, divided as follows: Crawfordsville, $344,5603; North Montgomery, $276,599; and Southmont, $270,586.

Clay County Schools -- Northview and Clay City -- are affected to the tune of $599,397, while Spencer/Owen Schools is losing $395,833.

Other area school districts and their losses include Danville, $364,448; Mill Creek, $232,161, and Eminence, $59,544.

It is important to note that the impact of the voucher program is not based on how many vouchers are used in an individual school district. It is based on each year’s Voucher Program cost to the Tuition Support budget across the state, regardless of the number of vouchers used within the district. For example, Lebanon Schools lost more than $530,000, Plainfield Schools lost more than $770,000, and Carmel Schools lost in excess of $2,365,000 this year.

Currently there are 23 school districts where no vouchers are used. They are small districts and the voucher program costs them more than $4 million this year combined. Peru Schools is the largest of these districts and it lost more than $321,000.

To make this complicated issue much simpler, think of a pie -- and as former North Putnam School Superintendent Murray Pride always likes to say -- there are only so many pieces of the pie.

In the case of the voucher issue, Indiana has baked a smaller pie and expects it to feed a larger number of people.

More students, fewer dollars is the result, notes Phil Downs, superintendent of Southwest Allen County Schools, who will present a more detailed report into the impact of vouchers on Indiana school districts at the April 25 IAPSS Spring Seminar meeting.

Downs also notes that there appears to be a misconception about how the voucher program works as well as its impact on public schools.

Here is how a voucher works -- A family wanting to attend a private school that accepts vouchers files their taxes like every other family. Like all taxpayers, a little over 44 percent of their income tax goes to support the education of all of Indiana’s students through a fund called Tuition Support. The family that qualifies and wants to send their student to a voucher school then fills out a form (the voucher) directing the state to send money from the Tuition Support budget to their private school.

This year Indiana will send more than $150 million to private schools. The amount of each voucher varies per student, but the average is $4,258.

There are no charter schools in Putnam County.

Conventional wisdom has believed that the voucher program will only affect big cities, Downs noted. But while voucher usage is higher in big cities, the financial effect is felt in every school district because the voucher dollars come out of Tuition Support, in effect reducing the dollars supporting students in all public schools.

State legislators have been quick to point out that Indiana is now spending more on education than ever before. That is true and it was true in the 2015 budget and the 2013 budget before that. But with the voucher program in place, that funding is not going entirely to public schools.

Also, Downs said, Indiana spending is not keeping up with inflation and it is impacted by the increasing number of vouchers being used.