What's emanating from the state school board these days is a lot of sound and fury, signaling fear among politicians who now must be bearers of bad news to some public schools. The message: You're going to get less money.

They're afraid, with good reason, that voters in the school communities will blame the messengers. But it's undeniable that funds are allotted inequitably among public schools: Some campuses receive up to 50 percent more in resources per student than similar schools. These inequities must be corrected.

Two sessions ago lawmakers passed Act 51, an initiative aimed at putting more control of budgets and other aspects of school operations in the hands of the campus leaders themselves. Education officials have worked ever since to devise a "weighted student formula" for calculating how much money the state should allot to each school. A student with greater educational needs would be assigned a greater "weight" in computing the total.

This means a school with more students, especially students requiring extra educational services, would be given more money than a similar school with fewer demands. It's a sensible policy that won support when the law was first passed.

But now the political rubber is hitting the policy road. The Board of Education, understandably but unwisely, has balked at voting to authorize the new formula because some schools — mostly those with relatively low enrollment — will get less money.

The school board, indeed, has a difficult task. It's hard to tell any school that under the current system it had been receiving a bigger share of the budget than the state can afford. No public school in this state has a fat budget, by any rational standard.

What may make the adjustment to reduced money less painful is that schools now have much more flexibility in how to use their share. Principals at some schools already are thinking of ways to use their staff in ways that will suit their campus best.

But before the real number-crunching can begin at the campus level, the school board must vote on the formula and those final figures. Schools need ample time to plan for the coming school year; the longer the board waits, the less time schools will have.

The school board is right to seek the fairest possible formula, but this process has taken long enough. It's time to get on with the next step.