On Tuesday, March 19, the committee substitute for HB 3 was voted out of House Public Education unanimously. It is anticipated the bill will be on the House floor for further deliberations by mid-April.
A majority of the changes were technical in nature. Clarifying language was added to reflect the original intent as well as conforming changes throughout the statute.
NEW PROVISIONS
- Requires districts to do an Efficiency Audit before they can go to the voters with a tax increase, the audit would be an investigation of operations of a school district to examine fiscal management and efficiency.
- Added a safety net for the golden penny enrichment. The yield may not be less than the 96% percentile of wealth per weighted student.
- Added Transportation reimbursement for the cost of transporting homeless students and CTE students to work-based learning sites.
- Increased the Basic Allotment for the small district adjustment (SDA) and mid-size district (MDA) for special education only. (removed the under 450 ADA adjustment in filed HB3 to help fund this).
- Added the option for special purpose school districts operated by a general academic institution to receive funding in the FSP. (HB 21 amendment, special session).
- Added Mathematics in addition to the Reading goals and benchmarks adopted by boards of trustees.
CHANGES TO FILED BILL
- Clarified the tax cap remains $1.17
- Replaced the Teacher allotment in the filed version with a much simpler allotment to high needs campuses and rural districts to attract and pay effective classroom teachers as determined at the local level with input from parents, educators and community members. Removed the bifurcated minimum salary schedule for teachers and returned to the current law minimum salary schedule with factors tied to the Basic Allotment so that salaries automatically rise with increases to the BA.
- Clarified the methodology on compensatory education (comp ed) allotment. The districts will use individual student addresses and assign educationally disadvantaged students to census blocks tiered by economical disadvantage. If a census block is not available, the student is assigned a weight of .225 (formerly .2). Educationally disadvantaged students who reside in a residential treatment facility get the highest weight of .275. Creates a comp ed advisory committee.
- Renamed the Enhancements program to Academic Services and clarified language and require participants to be educationally disadvantaged and limited eligible services to academic services. Explicitly stated that the funding may not be used to supplant instructional services being provided by the district during the regular school day.
- Adjusted the rollback language to: reflect that districts have to fill up tier 1 completely before they can access tier 2 pennies; grandfather provisions for those districts that had a tax rate greater than $1.50 for the 2005 tax year; recognize the copper penny compression and the addition of the 5th golden penny without voter approval beginning with the 2020 tax year.
- Lessened references to the commissioner’s authority throughout the bill. (Under Commissioner Authority To Resolve Unintended Consequences From School Finance Formulas – has 2 years to address instead of 4 and adds LBB approval rather than merely requiring notification)
BILL FILED and SUBSTITUTE
- Increases basic allotment by $890 per student from $5,140 to $6,030
- Funds extended school year instruction
- Creates a dyslexia identification option
- Funding for dual language immersion
- Extends career and technology program funding starting in 6th grade (currently 9th)
- New instructional facility allotment (NIFA) funding for $100 million a year
- Reimbursement for College Preparation Assessments
- Requires the district to certify they have established a program for gifted and talented students
- Funding for full-day high-quality Pre-K
- Established a blended learning grant program