Ways & Means hears administration's "state guarantee" to equalize local school spending

The Ways & Means Committee on Thursday, Feb. 13, heard from legislative counsel and tax department staff about draft legislative language for a proposed "state guarantee," a mechanism the administration would use to partially match school districts' locally approved spending above a statewide foundation amount.

John Gray, Office of Legislative Counsel, told the committee the state guarantee rate would be calculated as "1 minus the ratio" of a district's anticipated equalized grand list per pupil to the median district's equalized grand list per pupil, and that the guarantee amount is that rate multiplied by the district's approved local spending above the base. "It's 1 minus the ratio because we're trying to generate a rate," Gray said as he read the draft language.

The nut of the proposal: districts below the median property-wealth measure per pupil would receive a state payment that covers a percentage of the extra spending they approve; districts at or above the median would receive no state match for extra spending. Gray used three hypotheticals to illustrate the rule: if a district's property wealth per pupil equals the median, the state guarantee rate would be zero; if it…