House Education Committee approves adequacy report

House Education Committee members voted Tuesday to approve an adequacy report, already approved by their Senate counterparts, more than three weeks after its deadline.

The adequacy report, which is required by law to be submitted by Nov. 1 before the regular session, guides education funding for the next biennium in order to comply with the Lake View case, a series of Supreme Court decisions requiring the state to provide an adequate and equitable education for all public school students. Gov. Asa Hutchinson used the report to craft his budget and legislators will use it when they pass a budget during the 2017 legislative session.

Both the House and Senate Education Committees failed to pass the adequacy report Oct. 31, but senators met the next day and passed it out of committee.

The report calls for total funding for education to increase $45.6 million from fiscal year 2017 to fiscal year 2018 and by another $45.5 million in fiscal year 2019.

The report recommends an increase in total per pupil foundation funding to $6,713 in fiscal year 2018, a 1.01% increase over fiscal year 2017. Funding would be $6,781 in fiscal year in fiscal year 2019, another 1.01% increase.

Included in those changes are:

– Teacher salaries plus benefits would increase to $64,998 in fiscal year 2018 and $65,811 in 2019.
– Per pupil funding for secretaries would increase to $80.90 in fiscal year 2018 and $81.70 in fiscal year 2019.
– Per pupil extra duty funds would increase to $65.50 in fiscal year 2018 and $66.20 in 2019.
– Per pupil substitute funds would increase to $70.40 in fiscal year 2018 and $71.80 in 2019.
– Per pupil funding for operations and maintenance would increase to $674.90 in fiscal year 2018 and $685 in fiscal year 2019.
– Per pupil funding for transportation would remain flat, but a $3 million supplemental transportation program would be created for far-flung districts facing higher transportation costs.

The report recommends increasing catastrophic special education funding by $2 million in fiscal year 2018 and by another $2,020,000 in fiscal year 2019. That funding helps school districts with the costs of very expensive special education students.

Education funding also includes four separate areas of so-called “categorical funding.” The report recommends the following:

– There would be no change for funding based on students receiving free and reduced lunch prices under the National School Lunch Act. However, a separate $4.3 million matching grant program would fund tutoring services, pre-K programs and before- and after-school programs.
– Funding for professional development would increase to $41 per student in fiscal year 2018 and $50 in 2019.
– English language learner funding would increase to $338 per student in fiscal year 2018 and remain at that rate in 2019.
– Alternative learning environment funding for students who have faced disciplinary issues would increase to $4,640 per student in 2018 and remain at that rate in 2019.