Committee introduces LC 43 to rewrite Oregon's quality education model; members raise reporting and cost concerns

SALEM, Ore. — The Joint Committee on Public Education Appropriation on Jan. 15 voted to introduce committee bill LC 43, a legislative concept that would change how Oregon measures the cost and quality of public K-12 education and shift several statutory responsibilities to other legislative bodies.

Lisa Gazzelter, who walked members through the draft, said LC 43 “modifies the process used to determine the amount of state funding required for public K‑12 education,” replaces existing statutory education goals with a statutory definition tied to a “standard school district,” and moves the duty to publish a funding-sufficiency report from the Joint Public Education Appropriations Committee (JPEA) to the Joint Committee on Ways and Means. The measure also would move creation of the education cost model from the Quality Education Commission to the Legislative Policy and Research Office and require a full new cost model every eight years, with interim adjustments for inflation in off years.

The draft declares an emergency and would take effect on passage, Gazzelter said, to allow contracting and the work described in the bill to begin promptly.

Committee members asked detailed questions about how the changes would be implemented. Representative Rhett McIntyre said the bill as printed raised “huge” concerns about reporting burden and local implementation, asking whether school districts would be required to produce exhaustive compliance reports for every law that could be counted toward the statutory "standard school district" definition. “Please leave us alone. Please don't do anything else,” McIntyre said, urging caution about imposing new administrative tasks on districts.

Hannah Scott, legislative counsel, told the committee that Division 22 standards are administrative rules created and administered by the State Board of Education and the Department of Education, and are not themselves statutes. Scott said the bill’s effect would be to fold statutory goals and existing state and federal law into the definition of a standard school district, which could change enforcement dynamics and expose districts to existing statutory consequences for noncompliance. “If there is no movement on the part of the district to come into compliance, then the department has the ability to withhold state school fund dollars,” she said.

Members also pressed for cost details. Committee discussion noted that the draft follows a 2025 evaluation and the American Institutes for Research recommendations: the large research contract for a new prototype-based cost model would be procured and completed on a multi-year timeline so the first model would be used in 2029 and completed no later than Feb. 1, 2028, while LPRO (Legislative Policy and Research Office) would oversee contracting. Committee staff acknowledged the bill would concentrate a larger amount of funding into a single biennium for the eight-year study, and members asked for a fiscal estimate.

Several legislators said they supported revisiting the quality education model but worried LC 43 went beyond updating methodology and instead imposes policy choices and potential unfunded mandates on districts. Representative McLean said she was uncomfortable attaching the committee’s name to a bill that “is a policy bill that is making choices for our partners the school districts” without further details on what districts would be required to do and how they would be funded.

Supporters of introducing LC 43 framed the measure as a tool to move the long-standing quality education conversation toward measurable outcomes and to force continued deliberation in subcommittees and Ways and Means. One co-chair argued that the committee process exists to refine and amend committee bills and that introduction would allow continued scrutiny and change.

Co‑chair Rees moved to introduce LC 43 as a committee bill dated Jan. 6, 2026; the chair called for opposition, received none and the motion carried. The committee adjourned after the vote.

Next steps identified on the record included posting the American Institutes for Research report for member review, scheduling follow-up meetings with legislative counsel and LPRO to answer detailed implementation and fiscal questions, and inviting Department of Education representatives to brief the committee on how Division 22 reporting and compliance would interact with any statutory changes.

Actions recorded: the committee voted to introduce LC 43 as a committee bill; no roll-call tally was provided on the record.