Wednesday, April 10, 2024

House Ways and Means FY25 budget

 I have barely cracked this open, but it's online here. No cherry sheet update as yet.

A few brief things I already know (as always on here, this is my personal perspective):

  • Disappointingly, this keeps the same inflation rate as the Governor's budget. 

  • Also disappointingly, this digs us further into a hole for the districts making their way out of hold harmless by making the minimum per pupil increase $104. This costs $37M, and it's coming out of the Fair Share surtax, which, as this is an allocation of funds that has nothing to do with student, district, or community need, is really disappointing.
    This is a genuinely terrible idea, and it's actively working against the reform passed unanimously in both chambers that is the Student Opportunity Act. 

  • 'Though I have not yet found this written down anywhere, I have been told that this has an increase in the low income pupil count for some districts, which has resulted in some districts moving (back?) up a low income group. There certainly is a difference in the state aid for some districts that isn't coming from the per pupil increase noted above. 
That's what I have so far...I do plan to pull together a "tracking the budget" spreadsheet this spring (I haven't yet!), and I'll run through accounts later this week. 

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