My wife and I spend time in Iowa City, Iowa now. Iowa City was where we met when we were both students at the University of Iowa – back in the early 80’s.
Once, when we were living in Texas, the Iowa City Public Schools’ superintendent position opened for hire. I considered applying but didn’t. Later I found out that only 12 applied for the position. I’ve always wondered if I could have been hired for the position.
But the Iowa City Public Schools are in trouble today. Financial malfeasance, a superintendent resignation, and general public mistrust of the district’s leadership by parents and the community.
The financial crisis appeared after the district’s leadership failed to track spending and revenues for nearly three years, leading to a depleted general fund. To make matters worse, the Iowa City school board did not receive a district audit for those same three years – either internal or by an external firm.
Recently, the Iowa School Budget Review Committee, comprise of a group of Iowa legislators, mandated the Iowa City school board to appear before the committee for questions and scrutiny. The state panel may order a formal “corrective action plan” to fix the accounting errors that misled previous budget decisions.
The Iowa City school board has recently approved $7.5 million in spending cuts. These include freezing administrator salaries, reducing 23 teaching positions through attrition, pausing curriculum purchases and suspending plans to offer district-led before- and after-school childcare.
Iowa City Public Schools are now in the position of borrowing approximately $35 million over two years to cover cash-flow shortfalls and to repay a previous $10 million loan, which was granted to the district’s superintendent without the school board’s knowledge or approval.
Missing audits (three years straight) caused several banks to refuse to issue a $25 million loan to the school district.
The district also has decided to halt a $104 million facilities plan, which included work at one of the district’s high schools, due to a massive shortfall in the capital improvement fund.
And, if all of this isn’t enough, financial advisors warn that the district must consider closing certain school buildings to ensure long-term fiscal sustainability.
What a mess.
There are so many reasons our young learners would benefit from a new learning system. Better accountability, deeper relationships between adult learning leaders and their young learners, improved focus on what really matters when it comes to building smarter and stronger learners in the areas of reading, writing, problem solving, and character development – and improved financial systems to prevent the malfeasance Iowa City is currently experiencing.
Instead of a school board and district leaders having access to millions of dollars, what if an adult learning leader received $7,500 from each family in order to build a budget for 20-25 young learners? In turn, that learning leader would provide a annual budget and monthly update to the families of those 20-25 young learners describing how that $150,000 to nearly $190,000 is going to be spent to make that group of young learners smarter and stronger. The money goes no further than between the adult learning leader, and the young learners’ families.
Oh, and Iowa could learn a thing or two from other states, like Texas, whose state law requires every school district to have a balanced and audited budget every year. It is illegal for school districts to end the year with an unbalanced budget. And, school districts who have a surplus, are allowed to place that surplus into a reserve fund for future emergencies.
In my 35 years of working in and around public school districts in Texas, I don’t remember a time when a bank made a loan to a school district. Never.
As a long-time school board friend of mine used to say, “[Iowa City] has some work to do.”
Best of luck, and it’s nothing that honest leadership, solid financial practices, and a strong communication plan can’t fix.
Til tomorrow. SVB
A Better Path to Learning 
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