Senate Education Committee reviews H.454 draft that would create foundation formula, change special-education and CTE funding

The Senate Education Committee on May 2 reviewed draft language for H.454, a bill that would create a statewide "foundation formula" for school funding, change special-education funding from a census-block grant to a weighted approach, and revise how career and technical education (CTE) tuition is paid.

Committee staff and fiscal analysts presented a modeling scenario labeled "scenario C" that applies a new set of weights to long-term membership while holding the state education payment at the fiscal 2025 level of $1,880,000,000. Joint Fiscal Office staff said the scenario uses fiscal 2025 data and current-law district boundaries to test how different base and weight choices would redistribute that fixed total.

Why it matters: The draft would change how state education dollars are allocated among districts. That affects district revenues, the amount available for supplemental district taxes, and how much each district would receive as the committee phases in the foundation formula in fiscal 2028.

Key provisions and numbers

- Aggregate constraint: Joint Fiscal Office modeling held the overall education payment at $1,880,000,000 (fiscal 2025 level) while changing bases and weights to test distributional effects.

- Base and membership: The draft showed alternative base amounts (examples discussed include bases near $14,683–14,870) and produced different long-term weighted ADM figures (committee handouts cited figures near 27,951 and 26,433 depending on the model).

- English learners (EL): The committee debated whether to model EL students using a flat proxy weight or a tiered set of weights drawn from a cost-factor analysis. Two…