TERRE HAUTE, Ind. (AP) — Indiana’s school districts are bracing for big changes approved by lawmakers that will alter how they handle their budgets and school funds. The changes will take effect Jan. 1, 2019.
“It’s a huge change,” said Dennis Costerison, the executive director of the Indiana Association of School Business Officials, who worked with lawmakers drafting the bill.
The Legislative Services Agency says the law eliminates the school general fund and replaces it with an “education fund” meant for only expenses related to student instruction. It also creates a new “operations fund” that replaces funds for capital projects, transportation and bus replacement.
“Not having a general fund is a cultural shift,” Costerison told the Tribune-Star . “It’s a major change in how schools will do their accounting.”
The revenue source for the education fund will be state tuition support based on enrollment, which is similar to the current general fund.
“It will be easier to use money as needed, rather than having it in separate ‘silos,'” said Purdue University economist Larry DeBoer, who has studied Indiana government spending for about 30 years. “I can remember governors and legislators wanting to know how much schools are spending directly on classroom instruction, rather than operations or administration. Now with the education fund, we’ll have a number that does that.”
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. (AP) — A late-night bus service in Bloomington is being discontinued nine years after it started running during Indiana University’s fall and spring semesters.
Bloomington Transit started the weekend night owl service running from 11 p.m. to 3:30 a.m. for the 2009-2010 school year. But The Herald-Times reports ridership has fallen from 42,000 the first year to about 12,000 this past school year.
Bloomington Transit general manager Lew May says college students were the primary passengers on the routes, but that university officials have turned down requests for additional funding the past three years.
IU spokesman Chuck Carney says the school’s student transportation board didn’t support increasing student fees to continue the service. The university will continue its own weekend late-night campus bus route.