Speaker 1, a committee member, and Speaker 2, a staff member, discussed changes to an education funding bill during a May 30 conference committee meeting and reached tentative agreement on several drafting and study points.

The committee accepted proposed language on the draft's Section 3 and agreed to remove language requiring an additional presentation to the State Board, Speaker 2 said. Speaker 1 said the group would study career and technical education (CTE) funding and special-education weights before any new weights take effect, “to be clear that when we are studying special education and looking at those weights, that we're exploring different ways to do it, and that those new weights only take effect contingent upon a real look at making sure that they work,” Speaker 1 said.

The committee signaled willingness to include a one-year timeline for studying secondary weights in the foundation formula study “assuming the enactment of the house property tax classifications,” Speaker 2 said. The group also asked the Department of Taxes to review, in the year before enactment, how the various pieces of the bill would affect household budgets and to recommend mitigation measures if any town’s tax rate is predicted to change significantly; the General Assembly would then consider those recommendations, Speaker 1 said.

Why this matters: The conference committee is reconciling competing drafts of a school funding overhaul that could shift how districts and taxpayers are treated. Committee members emphasized that changes to special-education and CTE funding are subject to further analysis before taking effect and that local tax impacts need to be assessed before implementation.

Most important facts first: Speaker 2 said the committee would “accept the language that you proposed on page 17 of the side by side,” removing a previously proposed requirement to go before the State Board. On secondary weights, Speaker 2 said the committee was “willing to accept the faster timeline of 1 year, assuming the enactment of the house property tax classifications.”

Committee members repeatedly emphasized caution on special education funding. Speaker 1 described rapidly rising costs: the committee wants to “reduce the extraordinary special education costs that have grown exponentially over the last few years,” and noted those costs have “doubled year over year,” according to the transcript. The committee requested an analysis by the Agency of Education about maintenance-of-effort and maintenance-of-financial-obligation requirements; Speaker 1 noted that federal rules governing those requirements had changed “today.”

The transcript shows the committee also asked the Department of Taxes to monitor how the package affects taxpayers and to propose mitigation measures if significant tax-rate changes are predicted. The committee referred to an existing study in the draft on pages 107–108 and discussed examining the effects of allowing voters to approve spending amounts that differ from calculated district education opportunity payments.

What remains unresolved: Speakers said additional policy clarifications and numerical work were pending. Speaker 1 said administration staff, the Joint Fiscal Office and consultants were still reconciling spreadsheeted numbers projected on a wall and that further tweaks might be required. No formal motion or recorded roll-call vote appears in the transcript excerpt.

Next steps and process notes: The committee discussion tied further action to the enactment of house property tax classifications and to results of the Department of Taxes and Agency of Education analyses. The transcript indicates members expected additional materials and clarifications to be circulated that evening; no final enactment or vote is shown in the provided excerpt.