UEA Issue Summary

Public Education Budget Process

On February 15, unprecedented action was taken by the Public Education Appropriations Committee to insert many concepts into the Minimum School Program budget bill. Many of the items should have been presented as separate bills, heard in committees, received public input and gone through the scrutiny of the normal bill process. This would have allowed them to pass or fail on their own merits.

These concepts were just that, concepts, no specific language to debate or nothing to nail down on how the concepts would be implemented. It was quite difficult to make decisions on the value of the individual proposals. Indeed, there were Committee members who expressed their concerns with the process.

Here are the “concepts” that will be inserted into the education funding bill:

• Phase out state funding for the Local Replacement formula over 13 years. (Or one grade level per year)
  • School districts will assume the cost of this program over the 13-year period (about $7-$8 million per year)
  • This concept was defeated as a separate bill in the 2011 Legislature. (HB 313-2011)
• Phase out funding for high school students to school districts when the students attend a UCAT facility. This is a loss of about $5 million to districts and primarily affects rural districts. This was cut at the last minute last year.
• Require that the 10 percent matching funds for the Beverly Taylor Sorenson Elementary Learning Arts Program come from private funds.
• Require that the funds appropriated for Optional Extended-day Kindergarten be used to support an academic program teaching age appropriate literacy and numeracy skills to kindergarteners.
• Require the USBE to assign unique student identification numbers to each student participating in the UPSTART program.
• Request the USBE to issue an RFP to select one software program to be made available statewide in grades K-3 for literacy instruction. Also spells out the requirements for the software and that the State Board evaluate the performance of it.
• Request the USBE to make a recommendation on a differentiated funding formula for the CTE add-on money in regards to the higher cost and demand of courses.
• An IT Academy program will be developed that leads students to earning a certificate and obtaining employment.
• There were also three items approved for interim study:
  • A specialized committee to do a comprehensive study of the Minimum School Program
  • Study the Concurrent Enrollment program
  • Study the issue of Necessarily Existent Small Schools

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