The conference committees have finished their work and the General Assembly is expected to adopt their report on the budget. Our earlier blog gave you a link to the conference report. The good news is that the final product is much closer to the Senate amendments than to the House amendments. It appears that 38 school divisions will share in approximately $16.6 Million in LCI hold harmless funds and all school divisions will share in approximately $60 Million. It is important to note that it appears that none of this money will be built into the basic aid for rebenchmarking purposes.
Here is how the House Appropriations staff described the additional funds for K-12:
Conference Report includes a one‐time supplemental payment to all school divisions for the state’s share of a $129.62 per pupil amount (PPA) that totals $87.7 million in FY 2012
• The intent of this payment is to be one‐time in nature and shall be taken out of the base expenditure totals for the purposes of calculating the cost of the FY 2012‐2014 biennial budget and for future rebenchmarking considerations
• Reprograms $55.0 million from the Hold Harmless payments and $5.9 million from textbooks in the adopted budget for this allocation
The Conference Report also includes $16.6 million to make whole the remaining 38 school divisions that would have received Hold Harmless in Chapter 874.
The Conference Report increases the employer rate in the adopted budget from 5.16% to 6.33% for a cost of $31.0 million in FY 2012.
Click here for links to more information about the budget from the House Appropriations Committee.
Click here to see the House Appropriation Committee's projected distribution of additional funding to each school division.
Click here to open a presentation on the budget prepared by the Senate Finance Committee staff.
