Swarens: No, Republicans didn't 'gut' Indiana's public schools

One of the enduring myths of American liberalism is that if taxpayers would only surrender to spending more money on whatever the cause du jour, then life would be appreciably better for all of us — except perhaps the wretched 1 percent.

Nowhere is that fallacy trotted out more incessantly than in our public schools, where more is simultaneously always better and somehow never enough.

Take, as Example A, Indiana's recently approved state budget, which included, in dollar terms, the largest single increase in education funding in the state's history.

Now, I'm just a slow kid from a small town, but an additional $474 million — on top of the more than $15 billion the state already spends on primary and secondary education every two years — sounds like a fair amount of money. And that's before federal and local tax dollars are added to schools' budgets.

Not so if you listen to teachers unions and Statehouse Democrats — which, of course, is virtually one and the same.

Rep. Greg Porter, the ranking Democrat on Ways and Means, even accused Republicans "of gutting our state's public school system."

Only in the Fantasyland of Big Government is an additional half billion dollars considered "gutting."

In fairness, Porter's outrage was fueled in part by the fact that the new budget shifts money from poor, shrinking urban and rural districts to growing, wealthier suburban schools.

That certainly sounds bad on the surface. Taxpayers have long poured significantly more money per student into districts such as Indianapolis Public Schools in hopes that the additional dollars would help close the large achievement gap between low-income students and their more well-to-do peers.

But has that well-intentioned approach made a measurable difference? Perhaps not.

As The Huffington Post reported this past week, Indiana in recent years has spent 17 percent more per student in poor districts than in its wealthier schools. Pennsylvania, however, has taken the opposite approach — actually giving poor schools significantly less money per student than its richer districts.

Yet the achievement gap between rich and poor students remains almost as wide in Indiana as in Pennsylvania. And that's true in other states as well.

As The Huffington Post's Rikha Sharma Rani notes, "Some of the country's worst achievement gaps are in states that spend substantially more in their poorest districts than in their wealthiest ones."

It's not that money doesn't matter. Of course it matters. The problem, however, could be that the return on investment is diminished after a certain point. Especially if the education system itself is less than functional.

"Anyone who believes that money alone will make the difference isn't paying attention," Jonathan Cetel, executive director of a Pennsylvania-based research and advocacy group, told Rani. "Additional funding must be paired with meaningful reforms to ensure those resources are optimized. Camden (New Jersey) spends $27,500 per-pupil, yet only three high school students out of the 882 who took the SATs in 2012 were 'college-ready.' Not three percent. Three students!"

Fine, but why can't we just direct more money to those areas where it can make a difference? Why must lawmakers in Indiana be so stingy?

To answer that, let's look at what's happening in other states.

In Kansas, some districts are ending the school year early because of a lack of funding. In Alabama, the governor threatened to close 15 state parks next year, among other potential cuts, because the state faces a $541 million shortfall. In Illinois, legislators are considering a proposal to allow government entities to declare bankruptcy, largely because the state is staggering under $111 billion in unfunded pension liabilities.

Those states are not outliers. Bloomberg Business reported this week that 32 states are facing budget deficits in 2015 or 2016. Desperate lawmakers are slashing services and raiding reserves. Even at a time when the economy is relatively strong.

Back home in fiscally conservative Indiana, not only will schools get significantly more money but the overall budget is set to increase at a pace roughly equal to the projected rate of inflation. In other words, we're on a path of responsible growth.

In addition, state reserves are forecast to average 11.7 percent of spending over the next two years. That's a healthy cushion, and one that will help minimize the pain when the next recession inevitably hits.

Most other states would be envious of that surplus. According to a Governing magazine report this year, the average state surplus, excluding oil rich Alaska and Texas, is only 3.4 percent of spending. The Governing analysis determined that states need a minimum of 8.5 percent in reserves to weather a year-long recession without raising taxes or cutting spending. But, as the magazine noted, recessions often last longer than a year, which means larger reserves are prudent.

Keep that in mind the next time you hear Indiana Democrats claim, as they did repeatedly in the past year, that the state is unnecessarily hoarding money.

Keep in mind as well, however, that bad budgeting isn't the bane of only one party. In Kansas, with its out-early-for-summer schools, Republicans, most notably Gov. Sam Brownback, wrecked the state's finances with ill-planned tax cuts. Rigid ideology is a budgeting liability on both ends of the spectrum.

Now, I'm not saying everything is awesome in Indiana, and we're all living out a dream. As I've often written, we face deep challenges — including an undereducated workforce and per capita income that is well below the national average.

But we can't simply spend our way to happier days, especially if the pace of spending is unsustainable.

A little more than a decade ago, Indiana was locked in a boom-or-bust budget cycle. Money flowed into new and expanding programs in the good times. But even mild downturns triggered deep cuts, delayed payments to schools and local governments, and depletion of reserves to dangerous levels.

In 2005, state leaders — driven in part by Gov. Mitch Daniels' force of nature personality — summoned the discipline to begin building sustainable budgets. The boom-or-bust cycle ended and has been kept at bay for a decade. Even in the depths of the worst recession in 70 years, budget cuts in Indiana were far milder than in most other states, and dollars have been added back at a sustainable pace since then.

These days we tend to take honestly balanced budgets for granted. And we even entertain the grumblings of those who want to spend more, and more, at a rate that would soon outstrip resources.

Fiscal discipline is seldom fun, and it can look pointless and even mean when the sun is shining. But winter is coming. And a government must always pay its debts.

Unless you're Detroit. Or maybe Illinois.

Contact Swarens at tim.swarens@indystar.com. Follow him on Twitter @tswarens.