Who Will Pay for a Teacher Pay Raise?

   I think we've all noticed that House Bill 1114, the teacher pay raise bill, keeps chugging along. It has been most recently approved by the Senate Appropriations Committee on Wednesday, which means it may soon be heard by the entire Senate. The mystery at this time is where the $318,000,000 will come from, which will give teachers a $6,000 salary increase over the next 3 years. Even those with little financial training know that there must be a re-occurring revenue source for a re-occurring expense, so that "rainy-day" funds will not be spent. With a $900 million budget hole to fill, new money must be found to afford the raise. Still, those House and Senate members who keep hope alive, believe that a revenue source will magically appear... if they only pass the bill. They must either raise taxes for middle-class Oklahomans or find some "hidden" revenue sources.
   Since it is very unlikely that the Legislature will vote to increase taxes, they must work hard to "confiscate" or "re-direct" existing sources to pay for a teacher pay increase. The Legislature's answer for funding a pay raise may be in the school funding formula itself. They may be contemplating robbing Peter to pay Paul, by passing the pay raise and expecting the already broke schools to fund it themselves (as is normal). This is how the legislative shell-game would work, if they plan on schools paying for the teacher pay raise:
   Utilizing terminology that our mathematically challenged Senators and Representatives understand, the net foundation aid (money from the state) in the top half of the formula is calculated by multiplying the weighted ADM (number of students) by the Foundation Aid Factor ($ amount for each student) less chargeables (money from other sources). So using a hypothetical example, if the school's WADM is 1000 and the FAF is 1000, the result is $1,000,000. But wait, we must still subtract chargeables (other revenue sources, most of which is referred to as "dedicated" money). In our example, there are 5 dedicated sources of revenue, County 4-Mill - $40,000; School Land Earnings - $60,000; Gross Production - $30,000; Motor Vehicle - $140,000; and REA tax - $30,000. The total chargeables is $300,000, which is subtracted from the original $1,000,000 resulting in a net foundation aid of $700,000 for the school. School finance experts will now recognize that I left out the ad valorem chargeable which is also subtracted from the $1,000,000, but for our purposes we won't use it. (BTW, the ad valorem chargeable amounts to approximately 55% of the total local ad valorem received by the school.)
   The Oklahoma Legislature receives no credit for allocating those county and local monies such as dedicated and ad valorem funds. This creates a problem, as the Legislature sees it - they want credit. Legislators want to control and spend those other sources of school revenue. If they could get control of that $300,000 in chargeable revenue, they could give it back to the school for a teacher pay raise, and receive credit for providing it. There is an "elephant in the room" or problem they are ignoring, however - The schools are already receiving this revenue! Even then, it is already subtracted from the $1,000,000 supposedly provided by the state. So, not only does the Legislature want credit for providing a $300,000 pay raise for the example school's teachers, but they want it counted twice. There has already been an effort in the House of Representatives to get control of the Gross Production tax which schools already receive, in House Bill 1846. Their master plan may be to take Gross Production revenue from schools, and then to re-distribute it in the form of a teacher pay raise. There is also whisperings in the Legislature about taking control of motor vehicle collections, so it can be re-distributed as well. One may easily understand that the Legislature may "rob Peter to pay Paul" for a teacher pay raise. The problem with all this "robbing" and "thievery" is that in all likelyhood, it won't become known until the last few days of the session. Legislators may pass the budget bill at the end of the session, and then "beat a hot path" to vacation or back to their homies (I mean home districts) - where they can brag about passing a teacher pay increase.