Rep. Fulham offers amendment to H955 to suspend excess-spending penalty, citing misapplied student weights

Representative Fulham introduced an amendment to H955 in the Ways & Means Committee asking the panel to suspend the state's excess-spending penalty for the 2028 and 2029 school years, saying a confirmed error in how student weights were applied has shifted costs between districts and made the penalty unfair.

Fulham told the committee she pursued the amendment for three reasons: confirmation from analysts that weights were applied incorrectly, evidence in Joint Fiscal Office (JFO) data that the misapplication changes which districts are flagged for penalties, and direct appeals from local school boards struggling to explain rising costs. "Applying penalties to a formula that has errors is likely layering error on top of error," she said.

She described several concrete distortions the JFO analysis identified: some small tuitioning districts reportedly receive proportionally more weight than nearby operating districts, producing substantially lower weighted spending per pupil and removing…