By Jill Bennett Iman, JVA Consulting

After the recent passage of the 2015 Omnibus Appropriations Bill, I’ve been thinking about whether our priorities as a nation are aligned with how we allocate and spend money. Specifically, do our priorities follow funding or does funding follow our priorities?

As someone who sees great value in spending on children (particularly those from lower-income families), I tend to believe our current system follows the former path, in which our focus and priorities often stem from where the dollars flow. In other words, with about 10 percent of the federal budget devoted to children (including federally funded programs and tax credits and expenditures; Kids Share 2014, Urban Institute), I believe too little (financial) emphasis is given to the time in life during which investments are proven to produce the highest, long-term returns (see Currie and Almond, 2010).

Amazingly, among the 34 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries, the United States has one of the highest childhood poverty rates with more than 17 percent of all children living in poverty (see OECD.org). I am not naïve enough to believe that simply throwing additional dollars into the mix will solve the problem, but when total expenditures on children are projected to decrease relative to the size of the economy over the next 10 years, I begin to question whether my priorities are reflected in the budgetary picture.

Largely through spending on public education and health, state and local funding account for the majority of spending on kids (about 62 percent; Kids Share 2014, Urban Institute). However, relying too heavily on these funds can be tenuous, as we saw, for example, during the recession in which state budgets suffered from shortfalls and cuts. As a vivid example of this, Colorado lost more than 1,000 teachers between 2010 and 2012, yet added 18,600 students (see Colorado School Finance Project), indicating that budget cuts caused by the recession forced school districts to reduce spending in a number of ways, including laying off teachers, reducing pay and limiting teacher training. So, as states also continue to grapple with increased mandatory spending elsewhere (e.g., state pensions and the growing older adult population), it will be a challenge to offset projected declines in federal funding, let alone maintain current levels of spending on children.

While finding funding allocations misaligned with my priorities, I recognize that overall funding will not (nor necessarily should it) increase in the immediate future. So without an unlikely, dramatic shift in the distribution of dollars that would funnel more into support for children, it forces another question about the way in which the system itself is designed. Specifically, how does our current system inhibit the funding that is available from meeting the needs of our kids? (More on this next week.)

Please consider this blog post as “food for thought” as we begin a new year; not to say that your priorities should align with mine, but rather to encourage you to determine your priorities and take a critical look at whether they are reflected in how we allocate, structurally funnel and spend money as a country. And, importantly, if your priorities are not reflected, to think about ways of changing that.

Over the next few weeks, JVA will be sharing some thoughts on what 2015 may have in store for various areas based on the composition of the new Congress, current budget allocations and expert projections, but in the meantime, please email or call if you have any specific questions or policy priorities that you’d like to discuss.

JVA Managing Associate Jill Bennett Iman was a policy analyst and community engagement specialist for U.S. Senator Michael Bennett (no relation). At JVA she coordinates projects with diverse stakeholders, bringing multiple organizations, agencies and individuals to the table to discuss and analyze complicated social issues.