The nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau (LFB) has released their estimate of the district by district effect of the major K-12 funding provisions included in the signed-into-law 2019-21 state budget. The numbers in the memo represent the estimated change to prior law.
The memo includes analysis of the following provisions:
The non-partisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau (LFB) has compiled and posted its summary documents comparing the Governor’s proposed budget with the budget version adopted by the Joint Finance Committee (JFC). You can find the LFB’s comparative summary documents here, organized either separately by state agency or covering the full budget.
You can also find links to LFB documents — the full (all agencies) summary and the DPI only summary–on the WASB’s State Budget webpage, along with an updated version of the WASB Budget Chart reflecting the changes made by the JFC.
The Joint Committee on Finance (JFC) will meet in Executive Session to vote on K-12 education funding in the 2019-21 state budget on Thursday, May 23, 2019, at 11:00 a.m. The meeting will be held in Room 412 East, State Capitol. View meeting notice.
The committee will work from budget papers (see below) prepared by the non-partisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau (LFB). Those budget papers deal with specific subjects–e.g., revenue limit adjustments, per pupil categorical aid, special education categorical aid, etc. The budget papers provide background information and typically lay out a series of alternatives for the committee to consider on each topic. (more…)
Yesterday, the non-partisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau (LFB) released updated revenue estimates indicating the state will end the 2017-19 budget cycle with an estimated ending balance of $928.7 million, $312.2 million higher than had been forecast earlier.
That is positive news as the additional revenue could be used to increase state aid to schools. However, because most of the additional $753 million in state revenue will be collected in the current fiscal year that ends June 30, achieving such aid increases will require strong advocacy from school leaders, parents and other education proponents.
In a memo to the JFC Co-Chairs, the LFB said: “Based on our review of collections data and the economic forecast, we now believe that general fund taxes will be higher than the previous estimates by $592 million in 2018-19, $68 million in 2019-20, and $93 million in 2020-21. The three-year increase is $753 million, or 1.5%.” (more…)
Last week, when the Joint Finance Committee (JFC) Co-Chairs announced plans to adopt a budget motion removing more than 130 items proposed by the governor from further budget deliberations, they signaled the difficulty the governor’s budget, and his proposals for K-12 education funding, will face. The WASB is working to preserve as much of a funding increase for public schools as possible. While it is uncertain at this point exactly what K-12 funding items will pass, we do know how the JFC will proceed with its consideration of the budget bill.
As we cover the JFC’s work on the state budget, we’ll be using terms like executive sessions, budget papers and budget motions. What do those terms mean and why are they important? (more…)