Student Opportunity Gaps

New Accounting Measures

By May 12, 2013 No Comments

By Sam Walseth, MREA Lobbyist

Beyond the macro level funding issues at stake for schools are new methods of how dollars will be distributed. Integration funding will be distributed in a new fashion and districts currently receiving integration revenue can expect to continue receiving about 90 percent of that revenue.The Senate has also brought a new set of pupil weightings to conference committee.

In an effort to make the funding system more understandable to the public, the Senate is proposing to move the pupil weights to 1.0 for K-6 and 1.2 for 7-12. This sounds easy enough, but contained in these weighting changes are slight shifts in revenue from district to district and elementary school building to high school buildings.

House Research is examining the new weights and provided numbers that show very modest (with-in +/- $15/pupil) changes to anticipated revenue if the House’s “2&2” is added to the formula.

MREA provides links to the House and Senate look-up tables that you can use. As of now, MDE doesn’t have look-up tables on its website.

The House isn’t inclined to take this change, but we are told the Senate and MDE are pushing hard for them.

Check out the look-up table…

See the impact of the House and Senate omnibus bills, by downloading these tables and entering your district number on the first cell. The the table generates a report for your district.