Fiscal office: H.454 scenario B2.1 keeps statewide payment at $1.88B but shifts funding across counties

The Senate Education Committee on April 29 heard the Joint Fiscal Office present scenario B2.1, a modeling run for H.454 that applies proposed weights to the state's current-law school districts while constraining total education payments to the fiscal 2025 level of $1,880,000,000.

Ezra Holden of the Joint Fiscal Office told the committee the modeling honored a firm constraint: "for this modeling, one of the requirements was that I constrained total spending to that $1,880,000,000.00." The scenario adds grade-level weights for grades 6–8 and 9–12 and narrows some sparsity and small-school categories compared with earlier drafts.

Why this matters: H.454 would change how state education dollars are allocated. The committee's modeling shows that shifting the district construct and applying the bill's weights changes which…