The following is an analysis of budget committee and floor amendments related to K-12 education that have been approved by the House Appropriations Committee in House Bill 29 (2020-2022 Caboose Budget Bill) and House Bill 30 (2022-2024 Biennial Budget). This list does not include each amendment related to K-12 education in HB 29 and HB 30.
House Bill 29 K-12 Education Amendments
Item 145 #1h- This amendment provides $1.9 million the second year from the general fund to support actual participation rates for various early childhood expansion initiatives.
Item 145 #2h- This amendment captures $2.5 million the second year from the general fund from the undistributed balance in the Virginia Preschool Initiative program after updating final participation.
Item 145 #3h- This amendment adds $61.0 million the second year from the Lottery Proceeds Fund to increase the Infrastructure and Operations Per Pupil Payments by approximately $93 per pupil the second year, and a like amount of general funds offsets the costs of other lottery-funded programs. This action ensures that 40 percent of lottery proceeds are returned to school divisions to address infrastructure and operations costs.
Item 145 #4h- This amendment provides an additional $34.8 million the second year from the general fund, representing the net impact of the revenue reforecast, which indicated an additional $78.7 million in K-12 dedicated sales tax is expected. The additional sales tax revenue reduces the state's share of basic aid by $43.8 million.
Item 145 #5h- This amendment adjusts the funding for No Loss Payments as provided in Chapter 552, 2021 Special Session I, based upon other actions, including the sales tax update, increased Infrastructure and Operations Per Pupil Payments, and technical updates.
Item 145 #6h- This technical amendment saves $22,414 the second year from the general fund for updating student enrollment at A. Linwood Holton Governor's School.
Item 479.20 #3h- This amendment captures $31.3 million in unutilized school ventilation grant funds. The General Assembly allocated $250 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds during 2021 Special Session II. School divisions elected not to accept $31.3 million of these funds.
HB 30 K-12 Education Amendments
Item 129 #2h- This amendment provides $200,000 the first year from the general fund to support the Department of Education to study options for expanding student access to Academic Year Governor's Schools and regional needs to establish additional programs.
Item 129 #3h- This amendment provides $150,000 the first year from the general fund to support the development and provision of educational and professional development resources regarding marijuana use, pursuant to the provisions of Chapter 550, 2021 Acts of Assembly, Special Session I. The introduced budget proposed $310,000 for this purpose.
Item 129 #4h- This amendment provides $1,625,860 the first year from the general fund and $3,252,285 the second year from the general fund to the Office of School Quality to fund 12 positions in the first year and 25 positions in the second year to establish a regional continuous improvement model of support for school divisions not meeting state accreditation standards and federal accountability standards. The introduced budget proposed $3,325,860 and 25 positions the first year from the general fund and $6,552,285 and 50 positions the second year from the general fund.
Item 129 #5h- This amendment provides $650,000 the first year and $875,000 the second year from the general fund to support development of a pilot expansion of the Virginia Kindergarten Readiness Program assessment to grades 1-3, to be known as PALS +. The assessment is currently designed only to be administered to preschoolers and kindergartners.
Item 129 #8h- This amendment provides $6.8 million the first year and $6.6 million the second year from the general fund to support implementation of House Bill 319, the Virginia Literacy Act, and to prepare for the implementation of science-based literacy instruction beginning in fiscal year 2025. This amendment also directs the University of Virginia's Center for Advanced Study of Teaching and Learning to create a technical support center to assist in implementing the Virginia Literacy Act.
Item 130 #1h- This amendment provides $440,000 each year from the general fund to increase support for statewide training programs for school division staff to implement regulations related to the use of restraint and seclusion of students in public schools. This would increase total support for such training to $932,755 annually.
Item 130 #3h- This amendment removes $221,514 each year from the general fund that was proposed in the introduced budget to support a position to lead social emotional learning efforts.
Item 131 #1h- This amendment eliminates $5.0 million the second year in general fund support for through-year growth assessments. A companion amendment in Item 486 provides American Rescue Plan Act funds for these assessments.
Item 133 #1h- This amendment renames the Department of Education's Virtual Virginia program as the Virginia Supplemental Course Access Program, or VaSCAP, to minimize confusion with a similarly named private sector virtual education provider program that also serves public school students.
Item 133 #2h- This amendment eliminates $5.1 million the second year in general fund support for the statewide Learning Management System. A companion amendment in Item 486 provides American Rescue Plan Act funds for this initiative.
Item 135 #1h- Out of this appropriation, $417,502 the first year and $367,502 the second year from the general fund is provided to support costs associated with implementation of Parental Choice Education Savings Accounts, pursuant to the passage of House Bill 1024.
Item 135 #2h- This amendment clarifies that the "Accreditation Waived" status provided to schools in the 2019-20 and 2020-21 school years do not apply toward the three years of "Accredited" status required for a school to become eligible for triennial accreditation.
Item 136 #4h- Out of this appropriation, $3,500,000 the first year from the general fund is provided to contract with a provider to assist public school divisions with outreach and support for disengaged, chronically absent, or struggling students in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The statewide program shall be contracted with a provider that has experience in providing state-wide attendance recovery to at-risk students and can scale to provide multi-modal outreach and academic coaching support to over 15,000 students by the end of calendar year 2023.
Item 136 #8h- This amendment provides $2.0 million each year to support Advanced Placement computer science enrollment and student success. This represents an increase of $1.5 million each year from the amount proposed in the introduced budget.
Item 136 #11h- This amendment deposits $3,000,000 each year from the general fund into the Public Schools Trades Incentive Fund and Program to provide grants on a competitive basis to school boards who want to restore programs that teach students skill trades that lead to earning industry-recognized certifications or credentials, pursuant to House Bill 1064.
Item 137 #1h- This amendment eliminates Reading Recovery intervention program as a permissible use of At-Risk Add-On Funds. House Bill 418 amends a related section of the Code of Virginia.
Item 137 #2h- This amendment requires school divisions to report their intended uses of federal COVID-19 ESSER funds. Because information about the use of these funds is only collected at the time of reimbursement, little information is available about how school divisions plan to spend their remaining funds.
Item 137 #3h- This amendment provides $247.0 million the first year and $453.6 million the second year from the general fund to provide the state share of two 4.0 percent salary increases and two 1.0 percent bonuses, provided on July 1, 2022 and July 1, 2023. Language provides local flexibility by permitting school divisions to (i) access a prorated share of the salary increase funds to provide increases smaller than 4.0 percent, provided at least 2.5 percent increases are given (ii) apply first year increases in excess of 4.0 percent toward the second year increase, and (iii) provide an additional 1.0 percent salary increase in lieu of a 1.0 percent bonus. The introduced budget proposed two 5.0 percent increases each year, for $247.0 million the first year and $508.8 million the second year.
Item 137 #4h- This amendment provides $55.0 million the second year from the Literary Fund to support teacher retirement costs, reducing the general fund appropriation by a like amount.
Item 137 #5h- This amendment removes $57.4 million the first year from the general fund and $1.2 million the second year from the general fund, representing the net impact of House Bill 90, which exempts food purchased for human consumption and essential personal hygiene products from all state, regional, and local sales taxes. Sales tax revenues will be reduced by $129.8 million in the first year and by $2.8 million in the second year with the removal of the grocery tax, resulting in an offsetting increase in basic aid costs.
Item 137 #6h- This amendment provides $57.4 million the first year from the general fund and $1.2 million the second year from the general fund to supplement payment adjustments holding school divisions harmless from the net impact of House Bill 90, which exempts food purchased for human consumption and essential personal hygiene products from all state, regional, and local sales taxes.
Item 137 #7h- This amendment clarifies that Infrastructure and Operations Per Pupil Funds may be used to pay for debt service on projects that have been initiated but not yet completed.
Item 137 #8h- This amendment reduces the break-in-service requirement from 12 months to six months for VRS retirees to return to employment to fill hard to staff positions in school divisions, to the extent permitted by federal law.
Item 137 #9h- This amendment provides $28.8 million the first year and $29.5 million the second year from the general fund to increase the At-Risk Add-On maximum add-on percentages from 26.0 percent to 31.0 percent beginning in fiscal year 2023. The introduced budget proposed increasing the maximum add-on to 49.5 percent in fiscal year 2023 and 36.0 percent in fiscal year 2024 for $194.2 million the first year and $74.2 million the second year. This amendment is net of these actions.
Item 137 #10h- This amendment maintains the current English learner (EL) teacher ratio of 20 such teachers per 1,000 identified EL students. The introduced budget proposed increasing the staffing standard to 20 EL teachers per 1,000 EL students, for an additional $10.3 million the first year and $11.7 million the second year from the general fund.
Item 137 #11h- This amendment saves $2.0 million the first year and $2.0 million the second year from the general fund by implementing biennial rebenchmarking of Virginia Preschool Initiative per-pupil payments while excluding Cost of Competing Adjustments (COCA) as the introduced budget proposed. The Local Composite Index is capped at .5000 for VPI payments, rather than the traditional .8000 cap, meaning many of the same jurisdictions that would benefit from the application of COCA to VPI payments already benefit from the reduced LCI cap.
Item 137 #16h- This amendment provides $10.0 million the first year from the general fund and $10.2 million the second year from the general fund for the state share of one full-time school principal position for each elementary school. Current law provides that elementary schools with fewer than 300 students are provided a half-time principal position.
Item 137 #17h- This amendment provides $40.9 million the first year from the general fund and $42.5 million the second year from the general fund to amend staffing standards for assistant principals to provide one position for every 500 students. Current law provides (i) elementary schools with one half-time assistant principal for a school with 600-899 students, and a full-time assistant principal for a school with 900 or more students, and (ii) middle and high schools with one full-time assistant principal for every 600 students.
Item 137 #18h- This amendment provides $32.0 million each year from the general fund to provide one reading specialist for every 550 students in kindergarten through third grade, and provides flexibility for school divisions to employ other instructional staff working toward obtaining the training and licensure requirements prescribed in House Bill 319 that will become effective in the 2024-2025 school year. This amendment is in lieu of $31.5 million the first year and $31.6 million the second year that was included in the introduced budget to expand Early Reading Intervention from kindergarten through third grade to kindergarten through fifth grade.
Item 137 #19h- This amendment provides $291.7 million the first year from the general fund and $250.0 million the first year from the Literary Fund to establish the School Construction Loan Rebate Program, to provide competitive loan rebate grants for school construction and modernization. These grants provide 30% loan rebates for $1 billion in construction projects, and interest buydown grants to provide zero-interest financing for another $1 billion in construction projects. Grant selection is based on demonstrated poor building conditions, commitment, and need for projects financed through the Virginia Public School Authority pooled bond program or pursuant to the Public-Private Education Facilities and Infrastructure Act of 2002. The grant program is in lieu of the school construction cash grants and Literary Fund proposals included in the introduced budget.
Item 137 #21h- This amendment adds $29.5 million each year from the Lottery Proceeds Fund to increase the Infrastructure and Operations Per Pupil Payments by approximately $43 each year. A like amount of general funds offsets the costs of other lottery-funded programs. This action ensures that 40 percent of lottery proceeds are returned to school divisions to address infrastructure and operations costs. In addition, this amendment increases the minimum amount of these funds that school divisions must expend on non-recurring uses from 40% to 50%, completing the three-year phase-in of this requirement.
Item 137 #22h- This amendment deposits $150.0 million the first year into the College Partnership Laboratory Schools (CPLS) Fund. Existing law directs the Board of Education to establish criteria for distribution of these funds, which could include grants to establish a CPLS. Existing law further specifies that state and federal funds for CPLS students shall "follow the student," to each CPLS, but does not establish how the local share of funding is provided. This amendment provides that the required local spending for such students would be provided through disbursements from the CPLS Fund rather than the local school division. The amendment further clarifies that for the purposes of determining per pupil funding amounts for CPLS students, such students shall be considered to be enrolled in their school division of residence.
