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Board hears legislative update as session nears close; ACT and NSCAS funding uncertain
Summary
A board member summarized the Nebraska Legislature’s late-session focus on the budget and said state funding for the ACT and NSCAS assessments has been cut; the district was told the Nebraska Department of Education expects to find funding this year but future funding is uncertain.
Skip Baltic, a North Platte Public Schools board member, briefed the board on the Nebraska Legislature’s progress on May 12 and warned of near-term uncertainty for several education funding streams.
Baltic said the Legislature was on day 77 of 90 and spending much of its remaining calendar on the biennial budget. He told the board the budget must be passed by day 80 (Thursday) and that the Legislature has presented a two-year budget. He said the Legislature has pulled state funding for the ACT and for the NSCAS statewide assessments and that the Nebraska Department of Education (NDE) indicated it would seek funds to cover the current year’s costs. “They have to find money to put in to make this year because in our constitution, we have to be equal,” Baltic said.
Board members asked how those changes might affect district costs. Meeting presenters said the per-student ACT cost is roughly in the range of the mid-$60s, while the NSCAS cost was less clear and could become an unfunded mandate the district would have to cover if the state does not identify replacement funding.
Baltic and other speakers said that, beyond the budget, other priorities such as medical cannabis implementation and a backlog of priority bills could affect how much legislative time remains for education bills. He said the situation is unusually uncertain for observers: “In all the years that I’ve paid attention to the legislature, this is probably the most question mark thing that I have ever seen of what might happen with education.”
The briefing was informational; the board took no formal action on the update.
