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House Ways & Means considers converting small/sparse pupil weights into categorical grants under Act 73
Summary
Committee staff and researchers briefed lawmakers on whether to replace Act 127/Act 73 small and sparse pupil weights with categorical grants. Experts said grants allow targeted rules but raise administrative and transition questions; modeling estimated FY26 grant costs near $37 million under current proxies.
Members of the House Ways & Means Committee spent extensive time reviewing pupil-weight policy and the option of converting small and sparse tax-capacity weights into categorical support grants.
Julia Richtor, a committee staff presenter, reviewed how current law uses tax‑capacity "weights" (from Act 127) to adjust homestead property tax rates and noted those weights do not directly dictate how districts spend money. She then summarized the Act 73 approach, which converts some cost adjustments into per‑pupil "support grants" that are paid in dollars rather than through tax‑capacity weights.
Researcher Tammy Colby, who said she helped author the work underlying the earlier weighting effort, told lawmakers the…
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