The House GOP released its E-12 target late last week with a focus on one-time funding. The Senate will follow with its plan this week.
The House Plan
The House proposal focuses on creating $53 million in one-time funding by offering favorable refinancing of facility debt for several Capital Loan districts.
The plan assumes seven districts will take advantage of this offering which will create $53 million in immediate cash for the state, but would forgo about $10-15 million in future interest payments over the next 20 years.
The House plan also includes a $7 million marker on one-time broadband expansion for school districts that have limited or no high speed access.
House Education Finance Chair Jennifer Loon will release details of the plan starting Tuesday afternoon.
The Senate Plan
Chair Wiger of the Senate E-12 Finance Division is scheduled to release his omnibus supplemental funding bill on Wednesday.
It’s unclear how much in one-time and new, ongoing spending the Senate DFL has planned. It’s likely they’ll propose similar amounts of Pre-K funding as the Governor, but the distribution model is the bigger question. Proponents of school based Pre-K and scholarship driven Pre-K continue to advocate for their respective strategies for expanding Pre-K.
Negotiations Begin Soon
After this week’s rollout of the House and Senate supplemental E-12 plans, the proposals start about a 2-3 week process to get to an omnibus supplemental budget conference committee. From that point forward their destiny is tied up in leadership negotiations over taxes, transportation, bonding and how much, if any, to spend on programs this session.
View MREA’s updated side-by-side on the omnibus bills, including the Governor’s plan.