The panel can’t support many of the key elements of Scott’s plan because it doesn’t take into account increases in school budgets, members wrote to the House Appropriations Committee.
The education committee lauded the governor’s commitment to investing in child care, early education programs and the state’s college system. But members said that because he based his proposal on the idea that school boards would rewrite their budgets for the next fiscal year, reducing spending to the current year’s level, the plan couldn’t work.
“At this time, school district education spending is trending approximately 3.4 percent above FY17,” the memo says. “The Committee is not prepared to undo the hard work of our school boards by imposing a hard cap across all districts.”
Members also wrote that paying for the request through the education fund would put additional pressure on the property tax. “The committee finds that use of the property tax to fund education is already putting extraordinary pressure on taxpayers, and we are not prepared to recommend raising them more,” the memo says.
“If I were to level fund schools’ budgets, I would disagree with pouring this stuff into the ed fund. I would use some of it to lower property taxes. That’s what people want,” said Rep. David Sharpe, D-Bristol, chair of the education panel.
The governor wants to change the way the state thinks about and pays for education to include schooling and training from birth to 16 and beyond. Rep. Adam Greshin, I-Warren, a member of House Education, said the idea makes sense.
“The governor has encouraged us to reconsider how we pay for certain components of the continuum of education, notably early education and postsecondary education,” he said, adding that the line between the end of high school and start of college is increasingly blurry because of programs such as dual enrollment and early college. Greshin said he hopes the governor’s ideas will make it into next year’s budget plans.
In a February memo, the Appropriations Committee asked the House education panel to weigh in on the governor’s proposals. It asked specifically about increased funding for early and higher education, transferring costs now covered under the general fund to the education fund — such as teacher retirement, child care and higher education — and spending more on dual enrollment and early college programs for high school students.
The governor’s plan would have changed what is now a statutory requirement for the transfer of money from the general fund to the education fund and instead made it an annual appropriation. Lawmakers said that having the Legislature set the amount of the fund transfer would put in place the sort of practice that led the courts to reach the Brigham decision, which declared the education funding system unconstitutional. Before Act 60, which grew out of the Brigham decision, the state could shortchange the education fund during lean budget years.
Returning to this method of directing general fund support to pre-kindergarten through 12th grade education would likely result in a similar situation, the committee said. “We suggest this be returned to its original language without change,” the committee wrote.
Members also objected to moving teacher retirement and health care support from the general fund to the education fund. The education fund is almost completely paid for with property tax revenues. Lawmakers said the fund didn’t have the capacity to take on this and additional increases in other programs.
But House Education members did generally agree with the governor’s wish to raise funding for high school completion programs, dual enrollment and distance learning. They said they would try to find programs in the education fund that aren’t fully contributing to the success of students and can be reduced or cut, freeing up money.
“The governor’s proposal has merit, and many of his initiatives deserve consideration in our committee. However, the funding source — level-funded school budgets and reduced health care contributions — are off the table,” Greshin said.
