House committee advances bill to restore districts' staff-allocation flexibility; supporters cite levy relief, opponents ask for safeguards

Representative Sonia Galaviz presented House Bill 305 to the House Committee on Education, asking the committee to remove a provision in Idaho code that permanently shrinks a school district’s 9.5% staff-allocation flexibility when the district’s average class size exceeds the statewide average by one full student. Galaviz said the existing provision creates a “use it or lose it” penalty that districts cannot recover from and that the statute had become punitive for some districts.

Spencer Barzee of the Idaho Department of Education unpacked spreadsheets for committee members, explaining the history and effect of the rule. Barzee said the 9.5% flexibility was created in response to the 2009 recession to allow districts to operate with fewer positions without losing funding. In 2016, a statutory provision was added to reduce that flexibility by 1% for districts whose average class size exceeded the statewide average by one student; the reduction was permanent under current law.

Barzee told the committee that groupings of districts based on support-unit divisors show many districts were penalized even though their classroom averages were smaller than divisors used in state funding. He said 25 districts were penalized last year and that charters were not subject to the restriction; Barzee said 46 of 76 charter schools already operate without the restriction.

Superintendents from several districts testified in support. Scott Wollstone, superintendent of the Bonneville School District, said his district used $4 million from fund balance this year to keep the budget whole after attendance-based funding returned. He told the committee that allowing districts to take modest increases in class size would save Bonneville about $3 million — enough to avoid cuts to paraprofessionals, custodial staff, special-education aides and extracurricular supports.

Other superintendents, including Jason Moss (Grace School District), Mark Gee (Middleton School District) and others, told the committee the change would provide districts needed local discretion to allocate funds for transportation, special education, curriculum and other locally determined priorities.

Opponents and some members of the committee asked for more detail on how the change would work and whether a staged restoration (for example, regaining flexibility after consecutive years below the threshold) would better protect class-size limits. Barzee said the proposed change would not reduce the existing 9.5% flexibility overall; rather it removes the automatic, permanent one-way reductions.

After testimony and debate, Representative Dan Garner moved to send House Bill 305 to the floor with a due-pass recommendation. The committee approved the motion on a voice vote; the chair recorded an aye and the motion carried.