Governor’s package and ETF supplemental would fund school safety, buses and teacher pay
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Summary
The administration’s Education Trust Fund package includes a roughly $419 million supplemental for school safety, bus fleet renewal, reading interventions and a 2% pay raise in K–12; Poole framed those items as investments to sustain recent academic gains.
The administration told the Joint Interim Committees that the Education Trust Fund (ETF) package accompanying the governor’s budget proposes significant one-time and ongoing investments intended to build on recent gains in student outcomes.
Bill Poole, director of finance, told members the governor’s ETF direct appropriations total about $10.48 billion and that an ETF supplemental of approximately $419 million will be filed for the current fiscal year. Poole highlighted major supplemental line items: $50 million for school safety, $66.5 million for school bus fleet renewal, $45 million targeted at struggling readers beyond grade 3, and $84 million for higher education capital and other university investments. He also noted the governor proposed a 2% pay raise for state employees that translates to roughly $100 million in ETF cost for K–12 pay adjustments.
Poole framed those investments as continuation and consolidation of recent policy priorities—pre-K expansions, literacy programs and career-technical investments—and pointed to data showing improvement in fourth-grade reading and math rankings since 2019 as partial evidence of those policies’ impact. "Fourth grade reading ranking improved from 40 ninth in 2019 to 30 fourth in 2024," Poole said, and he urged continued focus on the reading initiative and numeracy programs.
Practical trade-offs: Poole said the supplemental and direct budget reflect the secondary spending cap and the rolling-reserve mechanics; large ETF balances (an advancement-in-technology fund and an ETF stabilization account) enable some supplemental spending now but reduce resources available for later years. Committee members were reminded that spending choices made now could constrain FY2028 options.
Next steps: Poole said supplemental appropriation language would be filed with the legislature imminently and department staff are available to answer detailed line-item questions; committee members asked for additional detail on the Choose Act funding mix and preservation of tertiary reserves.
