Senate Finance panel weighs three school funding formulas; sparcity, special education and transportation drive debate

The Senate Finance Committee on May 13 heard detailed comparisons of three proposed K–12 foundation formulas and extensive questions about how each would change state education spending and local tax liabilities.

Ezra Holden, a fiscal office analyst, led the committee through dollar equivalents for the formulas and noted the current fiscal‑year 2025 education payment that these exercises reference: "The education payment is $1,880,000,000," he said. Holden compared H.454 (as passed by the House), the Senate Education committee recommendation (H.450), and the administration's "enhanced evidence‑based" model, showing how the same student population yields different education opportunity payment (EOP) totals when bases, weights and boundary assumptions change.

Committee members said the contrasts matter because the models make materially different policy assumptions that affect both total state cost and how money is distributed to districts. The hearings highlighted three areas that repeatedly changed the bottom‑line estimates: whether special education costs are included in the base or kept as categorical grants, how sparsity and small‑school factors are applied (by school or by district), and how transportation reimbursement is treated.

Holden explained technical terms and modeling choices to the committee. He said the House‑passed H.454 uses an education cost‑function approach with a base of roughly $15,033 per pupil and a long‑term weighted ADM that produced an illustrative EOP near $1.908 billion when its weights are applied to current district boundaries. By contrast, the…