Conference committee advances homestead-exemption models, flags transition and implementation concerns

Members of the H.454 conference committee met May 28 to continue negotiating differences between the House and Senate education-finance proposals, focusing on replacing the property tax credit with a homestead exemption, the schedule for transitioning districts to a foundation funding formula, and whether to delay creating an Education Fund advisory committee.

The issue matters because the committee is balancing two goals: stabilizing and ultimately reducing per-pupil funding volatility while protecting taxpayers—particularly homeowners on fixed incomes and middle-income households—during the changeover. The committee also pressed state agencies about capacity to implement classification and exemption changes in a way that can be enforced and communicated to taxpayers.

At the meeting Julia Richter, Joint Fiscal Office, reviewed JFO modeling comparing the three major homestead-exemption designs. “All of the underlying modeling assumptions are consistent. So, those include using FY2025 data, holding all else equal,” Richter said, describing the office’s method of estimating each proposal’s…