House Ways & Means hears breakdown of governor’s proposed $13,200 school funding base

A Joint Fiscal Office analyst briefed the House Ways & Means joint assembly on Feb. 20 on the administration’s proposed school funding “foundation formula,” describing how the administration and its contractors calculated a $13,200 base amount per average daily membership (ADM) before weights and block grants.

Ezra Holban, a fiscal analyst with the nonpartisan Joint Fiscal Office, told the committee the presentation summarized material the administration and consultants provided and stressed that “this is not Ezra’s proposal. This is not the Joint Fiscal Office’s proposal. This is the administration’s proposal.” He described the base as a modified PICUS evidence‑based model refined by a contractor the presentation identified as APA.

The administration’s model starts from prototypical schools and a prototypical district and then assigns staffing ratios and per-pupil nonstaff units. Holban said APA’s adjustments to PICUS include adding $5,000 to the statewide average teacher salary used in the model and doubling the number of mental‑health FTEs the PICUS model identified. Holban said the Agency of Education provided the 2024 estimate of statewide average teacher salary that PICUS used as a starting point; APA then increased that average by $5,000 and the administration model applies a 36.1% benefit load to reach a unit compensation cost.

Holban said the prototypical district used in the analysis contains 3,900 students spread across eight schools: four elementary schools (450 pupils each), two middle schools (450 pupils each) and two high schools (600 pupils each). That prototype produces the administration’s base…