State Representative Jarad Klein (R) of Keota says it shouldn’t be a surprise that funding for preschool education in Iowa is down for next year.

The legislature approved a PK-12 funding increase of 2.4% for next school year, but preschool suffered a $7 million dollar cut. Klein says, when it comes to school funding, the devil’s in the details, “There are, I think, about 3,000 less (PK) students this year than there were last year, so because of the way we fund things on a per pupil basis, when schools see a reduction in funding, it always boils down to they have less students. One way or another there’s less students and when you get to large numbers of less students then it’s really impacting rather than a fluctuation of a couple (students) can be absorbed, but because the dollars follow the students, there’s less kids in preschool this year, therefore there’s less money.”

Klein says despite the preschool funding cut next year, there’s still about $81 million allocated to preschool education and the legislature continues to look at supplemental pre-K funding. He says having a child himself in preschool, he understands how difficult it was for parents to decide whether to enroll their child in preschool last fall in the midst of the pandemic.

You can hear more from Klein during today’s “In Touch with Southeast Iowa” on air and at KCIIradio.com.