Court Opinion

ID: 9579734
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:58:05.913095+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:35:43.928262
License: Public Domain

TERNUS, Justice
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent. I believe that the majority’s interpretation of section 442.39A ignores the clear language of that statute.
The statute says that funding for a reorganized district is computed using the “pupils added by the application of the supplementary weighting plan in the year preceding the reorganization.” Iowa Code § 442.39A (1991) (emphasis added). The majority states that “application of the supplemental weighting plan extends” through the “computation of weighted enrollment in year one” (i.e. adding pupils in year one) to the “funding resulting from that computation throughout year two.” (Emphasis added.) It then concludes that because funding based on a weighted enrollment was received the year preceding reorganization, the reorganized district may continue to use the weighted enrollment computed two years earlier.
This analysis completely ignores the words “pupils added.” Contrary to the majority’s concentration on funding, section 442.39A does not even refer to the receipt of funds in determining the carryover of supplementary weighting. It focuses on “pupils added.” This focus is understandable because “Iowa’s *753school finance formula is pupil-driven.’ Exira Community School Dist. v. State, 512 N.W.2d 787, 791 (Iowa 1994). Enrollment for purposes of calculating the budget for a particular year is determined in the year preceding the budget year. Iowa Code § 442.4(1) (1991). For example, the pupil count made in 1991-92 determines the budget for 1992-93.
The school district here concedes that the supplementary weighting allowed by section 442.39(2) was last applied in 1990-91. In other words, the last year in which pupils were added pursuant to the supplementary weighting plan of section 442.39(2) was 1990-91. That was two years before the reorganization which was first effective in the 1992-93 school year. The school district acknowledges that no pupils were added under section 442.39(2) in 1991-92, the year preceding the reorganization. No pupils were added in the year preceding the reorganization because the school district was no longer eligible under section 422.39(2) for supplemental weighting.
In summary, the record indisputably shows that pupils were not added in the year preceding the reorganization. Section 442.39A does not allow the computation of funding for a reorganized district to be based on pupils added two years earlier or school aid received one year earlier. That interpretation in not only inconsistent with the unambiguous language of the statute, it is contrary to the historical method of computing state foundation aid.
Although I sympathize with the school district, we should not ignore the clear language of the statute to fashion a remedy for its plight.
LAVORATO, J., joins this dissent.