Senators weigh revised foundation formula, warning of tax shifts and ‘winners and losers’ for districts

Members of the Senate Education Committee spent the meeting discussing proposed changes to the state’s school funding foundation formula, focusing on how the “base” and pupil “weights” are calculated and how those changes could shift property tax burdens across districts.

The debate centered on whether the committee should adopt an empirically-derived foundation amount proposed by consultant Tammy Colby or keep a formula that largely reflects current district spending. Committee members repeatedly urged more analysis, told staff to provide clearer modeling of the enhanced proposal, and asked that Colby return to explain her methodology.

Speaker 1, a committee member, said the panel has seen only a short period of implementation for the most recent weights and urged caution. “I want to make sure we, as far as we possibly can, speak the truth,” Speaker 1 said, arguing the committee should avoid large, sudden changes that could produce unintended tax and programmatic impacts.

Julia, a staff member from the administration, explained how the base and weights interact and described Colby’s method as a statistical cost-function analysis. Julia said Colby’s “education cost function statistically models the level of resources needed for students to obtain targeted outcomes,” and that Colby’s approach isolates the cost of specific student needs while holding other variables constant.

Committee members cited concrete concerns they want addressed before advancing legislation. They asked staff to produce tax-rate modeling that shows likely property-tax effects under different base-and-weight combinations and requested a clearer, block-by-block accounting of an “enhanced” proposal that had been mentioned but not laid out in detail. Speaker 1 also said they planned an administration briefing the next morning to follow up on unanswered questions.

Several senators warned the formula could create distinct winners and losers among school districts. Committee members described small adjustments intended to blunt equity problems — for example, a categorical payment intended for very small districts that serve a handful of English-language learners — but said more precise numbers and transition plans are needed so districts are not “shell-shocked” by rapid changes.

Speakers flagged the following specific points for follow up: whether the House or Senate base better reflects the true cost of education; whether Colby’s model is using up-to-date enrollment and staffing data (committee members requested Colby run the model using the most recent fiscal-year numbers); and whether governance changes or district consolidations should be coupled with funding changes to reduce long-term disruption.

Committee members also stressed timeline and implementation risk. Several urged phasing in changes because the current weights were only recently implemented and because last year’s rollout had implementation problems. Julia acknowledged the complexity: the base and weights must be calibrated together, and altering one without adjusting the other changes the dollar effect of each weight.

No formal motions or votes were recorded at this session. Multiple members asked staff to secure a return briefing from Tammy Colby and to finalize tax-rate and base/weight modeling before the committee advances a bill.

The committee scheduled follow-up work and an administration briefing; committee members emphasized they will withhold final action until they review additional modeling and hear directly from the analyst who produced the cost-function work.