How to Improve School Finance Plan on the House Floor
Author:
Scott McCown /(512) 320-0222 x 109
June 7, 2011
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At the end of the regular session, the Legislature was poised to pass SB 1811, a fiscal matters bill that included rewriting the state’s school finance laws, when the clock ran out. Because the Legislature underfunded schools in the state budget by $4 billion from what current law says schools need to meet the state’s educational goals, the Legislature now must devise a new school finance plan to determine how much each school district is to receive.
On Thursday, when it takes up SB 1, the House will again confront the question of how to distribute $4 billion in cuts to schools. SB 1 is essentially SB 1811 all over again. Based upon discussions in the House Appropriations Committee, we anticipate several floor amendments to SB 1 that would significantly improve this legislation and set the stage for progress in the next session. In this short paper, we explain the problems in SB 1 and how they can be mitigated by floor amendments.