Author Archives: rodden@lpicus.com

Allan Odden and Lawrence Picus have been retained by the Wyoming Legislative Service Office to work with the Legislature’s Select Committee on School Finance Recalibration to update the cost basis of all the elements of the state’s school finance formula. The current funding formula was based on an adequacy study the pair conducted for the state in 2005 and updated five years later during the state’s 2010 recalibration effort.

The work for the 2015 recalibration project draws from an Odden and Picus authored “Desk Audit” of the state’s school finance system that recommended recalibration of many components of the funding model. Odden and Picus met with the Committee on May 21 and 22 in Casper, Wyoming to launch this year’s recalibration effort.

Randy Poe, Superintendent of Boone County, Kentucky recently was recognized as the 2015 F.L. Dupree Outstanding Superintendent of the Year Award by the Kentucky School Board Association. Poe stated that Boone County has been very successful because it has been forced to look to evidence based finance to finance it operations and align everything to the instructional core.

The book on “Improving Student Learning When Budgets are Tight” is a valuable resource for all districts whether budgets are tight or not. It has been the major resource for our budget committee to establish priorities over time utilizing it as a guide.

Our district is funded $20 million less than the average school district in Kentucky based on per pupil spending for our size but our focus on the right priorities such as instructional coaches allows us to continue to improve academic gains.

Based on School Match.com we are in the lowest 10% for funding in the Nation but score in the top 60% in the Nation on academic performance. We truly believe we are that successful because of the Evidence-Based approach to school finance.