State committee reviews spreadsheet for proposed school funding formula, seeks more data

Members of a state legislative committee (committee name not specified in the transcript) spent a meeting reviewing the technical spreadsheet behind a proposed education funding model, hearing from Secretary of Education Zoe Saunders and Amanda Brown of APA Consulting about how the base, weights and adjustments were applied and which policy choices remain unresolved. The group set follow-up work for next week, including provision of a file that itemizes what was built into the base amount.

The walkthrough centered on a shared Excel workbook the consultants displayed and explained. "This very first tab is somewhat of the controlling tab for the model. This is where we have the base and the weights, laid out," Amanda Brown said as she showed the spreadsheet. Brown stated the model uses a $13.02 base expressed in fiscal year 2025 dollars, and that various student weights and adjustments are applied to generate a weighted average daily membership (ADM) and a resulting foundation funding total.

Secretary Zoe Saunders framed the session as a technical review to surface policy choices embedded in the model: "So as we go through with the model today, I think we're gonna make explicit some of the policy choices that are built in, and that is for further conversation." She and Brown emphasized the committee would reconvene to dive deeper into areas members asked to explore.

Key points explained in the meeting: - Base and weights: The model uses a base of $13.02 (FY25 dollars) and several categorical weights. Examples discussed in the spreadsheet included an economically disadvantaged weight of 0.75, an English-learner (EL) weight of 1.5 and a CTE weight of roughly 1.3. Pre-K, elementary, middle and secondary pupils are currently counted as 1 ADM for the model’s purposes, while an EEE (specialized early education) adjustment generated negative weighted students in the current setup. - School-size adjustment: The size adjustment is calculated on enrollment (not ADM) and includes a floor so the adjustment never runs below zero. That adjustment is not a linked formula on the spreadsheet’s front tab but appears separately in the size tab. - Independent (private/choice) schools: The model currently does not apply a small-school size adjustment to independent schools; the workbook’s size adjustments apply only to public schools. Officials said whether to include independent schools in size adjustments is a policy decision that remains unresolved. - Categorical funding and comparisons to current ed‑spend: To make apples‑to‑apples comparisons between current district education spending and the proposed foundation funding, the model adds back certain averages that districts now fund locally and reduces categoricals that the new formula would absorb. For example, the model applies an average per-pupil amount to reflect roughly $70 million in local special-education spending (about $840 per pupil as averaged across the state) and an average $300 per pupil for transportation in this early pass. Conversely, some categorical pots such as flexible pathways, EL services and small-school grants were removed from the categorical side because the model folded those supports into the foundation formula (the worksheet showed a per-pupil reduction of about $174 tied to those eliminations in the comparison columns). - Career and technical education (CTE): For comparison, the spreadsheet assigned CTE FTE and the CTE weight back to each district even though the consultants said, in practice, CTE funding in a future design would appear on a CTE/BOCES line and be distributed differently between sending districts and regional CTE programs. - District consolidation assumption: All modeling shown assumes moving to five larger regions. The spreadsheet includes tabs that sum current districts into supervisory unions (SUs) and the five proposed regions so members can compare current funding to the modeled recommendation. - Remaining data gaps: Brown noted about 262 FTE students could not be assigned to a district in the dataset used; those students collectively generate roughly $3.5 million that does not appear in the region-level totals on the current workbook. Committee members asked for an itemized file that explains what was included in the $13.02 base and how counts (for example, free-and-reduced-price-lunch vs. Medicaid direct-certification) were derived.

Committee members raised clarifying questions about how the spreadsheet counts part‑time CTE students (the department uses 0.5 and 1.0 FTE for part-time/full-time), how EL funding would function if small districts could not reach scale, and whether transportation funding would remain a percent-reimbursement versus being included directly at the district or state level. Amanda Brown described the modeling on transportation as a blunt, initial estimate intended for later refinement with JFO and further modeling; she said the current tab applies an average per-pupil amount rather than district‑specific reimbursement calculations.

The meeting ended with staff and consultants agreeing to provide additional files and return early next week to answer detailed follow-up questions, and with members noting the spreadsheet is only a technical step toward policy decisions that must be made about governance, district size and categorical policy.

No formal motions or committee votes were recorded in the transcript of this session.

Why this matters: The model described would change how state education dollars are distributed across districts and regions, folding some categorical supports into a foundation formula and assuming consolidation into five regions. Committee members said the spreadsheet helps reveal the policy choices that underlie those changes but that detailed, district‑level refinements and governance decisions remain to be resolved.

Ending: Consultants and staff will provide a breakdown of what was built into the base amount and return the following week for a more detailed walkthrough; House Education was also identified as the next venue for governance testimony. The transcript shows the meeting lasted about 41 minutes and that the committee plans further technical and policy sessions before finalizing any statutory proposals.