Committee advances LFO'recommended ODE budget; members press over Grow Your Own and student metrics

The Joint Committee on Ways and Means Subcommittee on Education on June 11 approved the Legislative Fiscal Office's (LFO) recommendation for Senate Bill 5515 and sent the measure to the full committee with a due-pass recommendation.

Wendy, a Legislative Fiscal Office analyst, told the subcommittee the LFO recommends total funds of $16,832,767,098 for the Department of Education, including $10,633,837,856 in general fund, $704,781,950 in lottery funds, $3,741,222,869 in other funds and $1,039,389,780 in federal funds. Excluding the State School Fund, the department-level recommendation was roughly $5.46 billion in total funds. The LFO package as described in committee included operations funding, technology modernization, grants-management replacement, summer-learning administration positions and a set of technical adjustments.

The LFO highlighted several program packages the office recommends approving. Those included a $2.12 million package to modernize the IT system that distributes the State School Fund; a $4 million general fund package to replace the electronic grants-management system; a federal funds package to staff implementation of earlier legislation on school days; and a $1.61 million general fund package that establishes four permanent positions to administer the newly ongoing summer learning program. "Those are a lot of numbers," Wendy said while moving through line items.

The subcommittee also considered Package 806…