Ways & Means members revisit yield bill language and Education Fund outlook; staff urge policy choices before modeling

Julia Rich of the Joint Fiscal Office explained how the three numbers that appear in the annual yield bill (property yield, income yield and non-homestead rate) are derived from the Education Fund Outlook and a set of interlocking policy choices: how much non-property revenue is applied to the Education Fund, whether to apply any one-time general-fund transfer to property-tax relief or to reserve it, and how to allocate required revenue between homestead and non-homestead classes.

Rich described the Outlook columns as scenario packages: selecting column D or E (for example) plugs that column's yields and parameters directly into the drafted yield bill language. She stressed the figures shown in the draft bill are placeholders and that recent statutory and administrative changes…