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Superintendent outlines draft Senate Bill 1 and House Bill 1001 impacts on district funding
Summary
Staff briefed the board on recent state proposals: an amended Senate Bill 1 would freeze operations fund levies in fiscal 2026 and phase modest increases later; House Bill 1001 would fold a separate curricular materials appropriation into the foundation formula, reducing LCSC's per‑student growth in the near term.
District staff updated the board Feb. 18 on state legislative proposals affecting school funding, focusing on property‑tax reform in Senate Bill 1 and the state budget bill (House Bill 1001).
Mr. Dennis summarized the fiscal effects of the current bill drafts. He said Senate Bill 1’s earlier draft would have cut property‑tax revenue; an amended version removed an immediate revenue cut and instead would “freeze” the operations fund levy for fiscal 2026, with permitted increases of 1% in fiscal 2027 and 2% in fiscal 2028 under the draft language. Dennis said the governor has criticized the amended version as insufficient property‑tax relief.
Dennis also reviewed House Bill 1001’s proposed handling of curricular materials funding. He said an appropriation created two years earlier for curricular materials (about $160 million statewide) appears to be rolled into the per‑student foundation formula. For Lebanon Community School Corporation, Dennis said the current run of HB 1001 would show a 2.4% increase in revenue per student for fiscal 2026, but $157 per student of that total represents the curricular materials money already in the prior budget. Removing that amount reduces the effective per‑student increase to about 0.5% for fiscal 2026. He added that the projected increase in fiscal 2027 of 1.4% becomes a decrease of about $10 per student when the curricular materials appropriation is removed from the separate line and folded into the foundation formula.
Dennis told the board these are preliminary runs and the bills will likely change as the session continues. He urged trustees to contact him or Mr. Dennis’s office with questions and said he would continue to forward highlights by email.
Ending: The board received the update for information; no legislative position or formal action was taken at the Feb. 18 meeting.
