5:00 p.m. deadine for school finance deal

Upon questioning from a House member on the floor today, House leaders indicated that the likely time by which a school finance deal must be reached is 5:00 this afternoon (Friday, May 27). The House and Senate have been trading proposals and counter-proposals for several days.

The amount of school funding has been determined by the conferees on the main budget bill, which includes a decrease of $4 billion from the funding needed to continue current services. However, the budget also includes a provision that will prevent the distribution of state funding to school districts this fall if the school finance issue has not been resolved.

At this point, there are essentially two competing plans: 

• One by Representative Rob Eissler would reduce funding for all districts by 6% over the next two years. This plan is considered a short-term fix and is relatively easy to understand, which seems to appeal to House leaders. It is also disequalizing to a certain extent, as it cuts from poor districts as much as it cuts from wealthy districts.
• A plan proposed by Senator Florence Shapiro would take 75% of the cuts from higher target revenue districts and 25% from all districts. This proposal represents a longer-term, more equitable solution, but permanently lowers funding levels and would result in cuts of greater than 6% to some districts.

Most recently, conferees have been considering a “hybrid hybrid” that would implement the Eissler proposal for one year of the biennium and a revised version (using different percentages) of the Shapiro hybrid plan in the other year. As of mid-day Friday a new proposal had been presented to conferees, who are waiting on the funding printouts that show how much each district would receive under the plan.

The focus recently has been almost exclusively on school finance, and not on the “deregulation” proposals that had previously been so prominent in education discussions. It is not known at this time whether SB 1811, this school finance vehicle, will include any of the provisions from HB 400 that were opposed by TCTA, such as elimination of the state minimum salary schedule and repeal of key teacher legal protections).