House Education hears Ways and Means on foundation formula, district sizing and school construction timing

House Education on March 14 took testimony from members of the House Ways and Means Committee about plans to implement a statewide foundation school funding formula and how that work should link to district boundaries, property-tax changes and school construction.

A member of the House Ways and Means Committee, speaking to the Education panel, said timing is the committee’s primary need: “we want our timeline to align with your timeline because the funding should match what’s happening in school, in classrooms, in communities.” The Ways and Means member said the panel is trying to coordinate three separate changes — two changes to property taxes and the new foundation formula — and urged the changes be effective in the same year to avoid “whiplash.”

The Ways and Means member said the committee is working with the Joint Fiscal Office on modeling and gave a preliminary implementation target of fiscal 2028, adding, “FY ’28 seems like the most realistic thing to me based on my preliminary conversations with the tax department.”

Why it matters: the committee’s choices about district scale and the timing of tax and spending changes…