The Governor and Legislature have begun the battle over the budget targets for key areas. The E-12 spending target from the current biennium to the next biennium is projected to grow by $744 million over a four-year period.
A closer look at the projected “growth:”
- Part of that growth includes the state take-over of certain local levy obligations that count as state increases in E-12 funding, but not new revenue to schools.
- Pupil growth also factors for a large portion of the biennial increases in E-12 funding. There’s an estimated 36,000 new students projected over this four-year period. Growth in special education funding is in this figure as well, but the cross-subsidy continues to grow.
- Roughly one-third of the revenue growth stems from the phase-in of Long-Term Facilities Maintenance revenue, which is extremely important and is needed to close a huge inequity in the funding system.
All of this is complicated, but we wanted to alert you to this discussion in case your legislators make a comment about growth in E-12 spending as a reason to not add new money this session.
To learn more, view this document that outlines this in further detail.
