Committee advances proposal to move K–12 discretionary funding toward weighted student formula

The Senate Education Committee voted to send Senate Bill 1096 to the Senate floor with a due-pass recommendation after the bill's sponsor, Senator Woodward, described a plan to move a portion of K–12 discretionary funding into a weighted per-student distribution that adjusts allocations based on student attributes.

Senator Woodward described the measure as an incremental approach to revising Idaho’s K–12 funding formula. The bill would start by shifting the discretionary portion of the public school budget (described in committee materials as about 13% of total public school support) into a weighted per-student model that assigns additional weights for student attributes including economically disadvantaged students, English language learners, special education, small schools, gifted-and-talented and at-risk alternative students. The sponsor said…