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Joint Budget Committee approves school finance midyear adjustment; strikes technical trigger language
Summary
The committee approved the school finance midyear adjustment bill to reflect final pupil counts and local share changes, increasing the state share from the State Education Fund by $64.1 million. The panel removed a section (section 3) that would have altered trigger language tied to transfers and instructed sponsors to renumber the bill.
The Joint Budget Committee approved a midyear adjustment to school finance after JBC staff reported final pupil counts and local share figures. Andrea Ewell, JBC staff, said the changes require the State Education Fund (SEF) to provide an additional $64,100,000 to cover higher pupil counts and a lower local share.
Ewell and LLS staff described two technical statutory cleanups included in the draft. One responds to a correction identified by the chief economist in June: a retrospective correction to prior SEF transfers that increased available SEF balances. Committee members raised a drafting concern that the correction could unintentionally trigger an automatic shutoff in the school‑funding phase‑in language (the statute referenced as 1448). After discussion the committee removed section 3 of the draft — the language that would have changed the trigger calculation — and agreed the remaining statutory cleanup (a repeal date fix tied to a reserve fund) could stay in the measure.
Motion and outcome: The committee voted to approve the school finance midyear supplemental without section 3 and authorized technical renumbering. The motion passed without objection. Sponsors were announced for introduction: Senate side lead sponsor and co-sponsors included Senator Kirk‑Meyer and Senator Amabile; House co-sponsors included Representative Taggart and Representative Serota. The committee instructed staff to pursue any final technical corrections necessary for introduction.
Key numbers: JBC staff reported a $38.5 million increase to total program costs due to higher pupil counts and a $25.6 million shifting of local share onto the state, netting the $64.1 million SEF increase. Staff emphasized the committee retains discretion to stop the phase‑in if future forecasts meet statutory shutoff criteria; the committee chose to remove the technical trigger clarification at this time.
The committee approved the motion by general consent; recorded votes were not taken on the floor (committee members indicated no objections).
