Below you can see how much your district would have gained if the state had kept up with the rate of inflation since 2010.

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Since 2009-10, the Indiana General Fund (i.e., monies legislators control) has grown by 69.47%. The Consumer Price Index (inflation rate) has grown by 49.58%. The state has a lot more money ($2.7B) to spend than it did in 2009-10 relative to inflation.

Unfortunately, the K-12 Tuition Support Budget has grown by only 45.93%, well behind inflation. As of September of 2025, the current budget for public, charter, and voucher-receiving schools is $234.2M behind the 2009-10 budget when inflation is taken into account.

The funding deficit is even worse now that “the money follows the child” — moving taxpayer dollars out of community public schools and into private and charter systems that operate with less public oversight.

In the 2009–10 school year, the Indiana General Assembly took over the responsibility for funding educators and other school operating costs — expenses that had previously been paid in part through local property taxes. That year, the legislature allocated $6,192 per student to the state’s Tuition Support Budget. Since then, local property taxes have been limited mainly to covering the physical infrastructure of public schools or projects approved through local referendums.

In the 2025-26 school year the Tuition Support Budget allocates $8788.18 per student. That allocation is calculated by adding the number of Public and Charter students to 90% of the Voucher students (Vouchers are worth 90% of the tuition support) divided by the total Tuition Support Budget.

If the per student allocation had kept pace with inflation, the Tuition Support Budget would allocate $9261.43 per student (Public, Charter, and .9 of Voucher), and would produce a total budget of $9.9B. The 2025-26 budget is $504.6M less on a per student basis.

Data source: Dr. Phil Downs, “2025-2026 Indiana Education and Voucher Funding Summary,” https://drphildowns.com/index.php/2025/12/20/2025-2026-indiana-education-and-voucher-funding-summary/

Note: 2022-2023 saw a smaller budget increase coupled with a big jump in inflation leading to a larger shortage relative to previous years. In the 2023-2024 budget, a bigger increase in the budget and slowing of inflation brought it back down.