The Senate Budget and Taxation’s Education, Business, and Administration subcommittee held a decision meeting today on the budget. The subcommittee concurred with many of the decisions made in the House, including a restoration of approximately $65.8 million of k-12 school funding through the foundation formula.

In their budget decisions last week, the House Appropriations Committee made two moves with regard to the State’s K-12 education funding for FY16. First, the Committee rejected one of the Governor’s major budget reductions, a proposal to freeze the per-pupil funding factor of the foundation formula, voting instead in favor of allowing education funding to grow with an inflation factor. According to the Decision Document, this choice will cost the State $65.8 million more in the FY16 budget. Second, the Committee adopted the Governor’s proposal to slow the phase-in of another funding factor, the net-taxable income. That proposal amounts to a reduction in funding for several jurisdictions. According to the Decision Document, this choice will save the State $12.1 million in the FY16 budget. Today, the Senate Budget and Taxation’s Education, Business, and Administration subcommittee concurred with both of those decisions, with one modification – a 1.5% cap on inflationary increases in the per-pupil funding formula in years FY17-FY20.

While there is no accompanying county-by-county data on the effect of these decisions, a reference point is the fiscal note prepared by the Department of Legislative Services for the Budget Reconciliation and Financing Act. The first two columns of Appendix C show the effects of the Governor’s proposals with regard to the per-pupil factor and net taxable income.

For more information, see our previous posts and the Department of Legislative Services’ Fiscal Note on HB 72.