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Senate committee advances proposal to move K–12 discretionary funding to weighted per‑student formula
Summary
Senate Bill 1096 would redesign portions of K–12 school funding by creating a weighted per‑student distribution for discretionary funds, adding weights for student characteristics such as special education, English‑language learners and economic disadvantage, with a two‑year hold harmless provision for districts and charters.
The Senate Education Committee voted to send Senate Bill 1096 to the Senate floor with a do-pass recommendation after sponsor Senator Woodward and State Department of Education officials outlined a plan to shift parts of the K–12 funding system toward a weighted per‑student model for discretionary dollars.
Senator Woodward said the proposal focuses on the discretionary portion of the public school support budget (a share of total state K–12 funding) and would distribute that money based on student attributes. The bill would assign weights for economically disadvantaged students, English‑language learners, special education students, small‑school adjustments, gifted and talented students and at‑risk students in alternative settings. A student may carry more than one weighted characteristic and weights would stack, the sponsor said.
Woodward told the committee the bill is deliberately incremental: it targets the discretionary portion of the budget rather than attempting to rewrite the entire funding formula for the full $3.3 billion public-school support appropriation. He said last year the discretionary portion was about $379,000,000 and that the proposal aims to move specified statutory line items into the discretionary pool so they can be distributed using the weights. The sponsor also described a two‑year hold‑harmless for fiscal years 2026–27 so districts would not immediately lose funding if the new distribution reduced their allocations.
Superintendent Debbie Critchfield described the change as a shift from funding systems to funding students. She said the department has worked with stakeholders on the draft for almost two years and argued the system would give districts greater flexibility to align dollars with local student needs. Gideon Toleman, the department’s financial officer, clarified that some line items (for example, Safe and Drug Free Schools funding) are dedicated sources currently but could be moved into discretionary distribution under the proposed transition; Toleman said those funds do not come from a “millennial fund” but are dedicated and distributed to districts today.
The hearing produced both broad support and caution. Supporters — including the Idaho School Boards Association, Idaho Association of School Administrators, Idaho Charter School Network and several superintendents — urged the committee to approve the policy shift. Testimony from the Idaho Educational Services for the Deaf and Blind and parents emphasized the high cost of special‑education supports (assistive technology, interpreters, specialized therapists) and said a weighted model could help level resource differences between small and large districts. Several small rural superintendents warned the committee that some low‑enrollment districts could face substantial percentage declines in discretionary funding after the two‑year hold‑harmless period; one speaker from the Cambridge School District said his district faces an estimated 20 percent drop in discretionary funds under the draft allocation.
Senator Woodward and department witnesses repeatedly noted this is a policy bill that does not itself appropriate dollars; the total amount to be distributed under any new formula would be set through the budget process in the Joint Finance and Appropriations Committee. Questions at the hearing probed which statutory line items would be moved, how the fiscal note should be read (the sponsor said the committee’s policy action is separate from the department’s budget request), and whether the changes could be phased to avoid cliffs for rural districts.
After more than an hour of testimony from district leaders, parents and advocacy organizations, the committee voted to send Senate Bill 1096 to the Senate floor with a due-pass recommendation by voice vote; the motion carried, and no roll-call tally appears in the transcript.
Votes at a glance: Motion to send Senate Bill 1096 to the Senate floor with a due-pass recommendation; carried by voice vote in committee.
