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Senate committee adopts O'Brien amendment, boosts funding for school spending transparency dashboard
Summary
Committee accepted an amendment by Representative O'Brien to require a public dashboard of school financial data, increased implementation funding to $500,000, and referred House Bill 1329 to Appropriations by unanimous vote.
The Senate Education Committee unanimously approved an amended version of House Bill 1329 that directs the creation of a standardized dashboard for school-district financial and spending data and increases the initial appropriation for the project.
Senators debated whether to keep the bill as a study or require immediate dashboard development; committee members endorsed the latter and adopted an amendment provided by Representative O'Brien that converts the study into a policy implementation with a larger appropriation. Committee members discussed a phased rollout to accommodate districts with limited technical resources.
Committee members noted the original bill language included a $97,000 appropriation for a study; the O'Brien amendment replaces that with a larger, implementation-oriented appropriation. Committee discussion referenced slide materials estimating year-one implementation costs and vendor estimates (cited from Oracle and IT partners) that approach $500,000 for initial development depending on phasing and scope. One senator said the necessary data already exists at the local level but that districts lack a uniform, digestible system to present it: "We haven't provided a system that makes that easily digestible, reportable," Senator Axman said, arguing the committee should not wait two years for a study to finish when tools could be deployed sooner.
The committee approved the O'Brien amendment on a recorded vote of 6 yeas, 0 nays. The committee then voted 6–0 to give HB 1329 a due-pass recommendation and re-refer it to the Appropriations Committee. Senator Moshe was recorded as the bill carrier out of committee.
Members discussed phasing options (for example, by district size) and coordinated review with the Department of Public Instruction, school-board organizations, county officials, and the Secretary of State's office. The committee also discussed that the dashboard's modernized data collection could later streamline other reporting requirements for districts.
The matter now goes to Appropriations for fiscal review and potential funding allocation.
