Committee reviews draft education funding bill, inserts base amount and new weighting rules

The Ways & Means committee on Oct. 12 reviewed a draft of changes to the state funding of public education in Title 16, Chapter 133 that plugs in a new base amount, refines student weighting, and moves small-school and sparsity supports from formula weights to targeted grants.

John Gray, legislative council, told the committee the draft now includes a specific base amount and several technical clarifications. “This is just a technical change to reduce confusion as people read this chapter,” Gray said, describing the edits as intended to harmonize language across the bill.

The bill replaces earlier placeholders by setting the base figure that underlies the foundation formula and incorporates updated cost-factor numbers presented to the committee. Committee members noted the draft moves the base from a placeholder figure they had been using — $13,200 — to a higher plugged-in figure discussed in the draft, $15,033, an increase they described in the meeting as roughly 14 percent.

Why it matters: the base amount and the set of weights determine how much state funding each district receives per pupil and how additional needs — economic disadvantage, English-language learners (ELs), and students with disabilities — modify those allocations. The draft sets effective and review dates intended to guide a multi-year transition to a new “foundation” approach.

Key provisions and discussion

- Base amount and timing: The draft inserts a specific base amount into the education-funding chapter and ties other changes to an implementation date of July 1, 2027. Committee staff said the bill also includes an accelerated reporting and review timeline that requires a recalculation based on updated weights and a cost factor on or before Jan. 1, 2026.

- Weights for student needs: The bill removes grade-level weights and specifies refined weights for EL pupils and students with disabilities. For EL pupils the draft applies higher weights at lower English-proficiency levels (examples cited in the draft include 2.11 for the lowest proficiency tier, 1.41 for the next tier, 1.20 for a higher tier and 0.12 for the highest proficiency tiers). Newcomer pupils or students with limited or interrupted formal education (sometimes cited as SLIFE or “new Americans” in committee discussion) receive an additional weight (the draft lists 0.42 in the EL section). For children with disabilities the draft lists example additional weights by cost level: 0.79 (low), 1.35 (medium) and 2.49 (high).

- Definitions and data: The draft pulls some special-education terminology from other parts of Title 16 and adds definitions to align counting and assignment of pupils into categories. The draft asks the secretary of education to compute counts using long-term membership and to produce weighted long-term membership totals for each district.

- Hold-harmless and transition: The bill retains an existing hold-harmless provision to smooth sudden funding changes during the transition; committee members discussed that the hold-harmless can create a long tail of overpayments to some districts that do not operate schools, and that the provision will affect the pace of change as weights are phased out.

- Small-school and sparsity supports converted to grants: Rather than continuing small-school and sparsity weights in the formula, the draft creates targeted grants. The draft defines a “small school” (two-year average enrollment under 100 pupils and determined by the State Board of Education to be “small by necessity”) and a sparsity threshold (district population density under 55 persons per square mile). The draft proposes a small-school support grant equal to two-year average enrollment multiplied by $3,157 and a sparsity support grant equal to long-term membership multiplied by $196.

- Adult education: Several members questioned language that ties an older ‘‘base’’ term to adult education funding. Committee discussion noted the adult-education program changed in past sessions and that the draft currently contains a vestigial numeric reference (6,800) and language that could be confusing if left unchanged. Representative Hochman said, “I have a problem with this,” arguing that adult education funded from the K–12 Education Fund should be made more transparent or restructured as a one-year block grant while the committee studies longer-term options.

- Assessments and reporting: The draft incorporates the cost-factor and weighting recommendations that staff said came from Dr. Colby’s presentation to the panel; it also adds a requirement to revisit the selected numbers (including any inflation measure) in the coming year.

What was not decided

Committee members debated terminology and structure but did not adopt final language on how adult education should be funded going forward, nor did the committee vote on the draft during the session. Members asked staff for follow-up drafting options (for example, renaming the new defined term or converting an item to a one-year block grant to make funding flows more transparent). The meeting notes and the draft text indicate the committee expects to continue discussion as part of the multi-year transition to the foundation formula.

Looking ahead

Committee staff flagged two near-term dates in the draft: a required study or recommendations to return by Dec. 1, 2025, and a recalculation or reassessment of the base and weights on or before Jan. 1, 2026. Many of the structural changes the bill creates are slated to be effective July 1, 2027, when the foundation formula provisions would apply.

(End of coverage)