The House released a partial Education budget for 2017-2019 on Thursday, May 25th at an 8:30 AM committee meeting. Leadership allowed members to add amendments at the meeting though they had not received the budget in advance. The committee passed the report in a party line vote at approximately 2:45 PM.
The House made the Appropriations bill available on the night of May 30, the money report and special provisions are also online, and it passed the Appropriations Committee late in the afternoon of May 31. The full chamber passed the bill at 12:29 AM on Friday June 2.
Here are the details we have so far on the House Education budget:
- Teachers starting out through 25 years of experience will receive raises from 1% for newest teachers to 6.7% to teachers with 17-19 years of experience. Teachers at 25 years or more would receive a 0.6% increase of $300. Teachers at or above 27 years could receive a retention bonus of up to $5,000 for agreeing to teach for 2 more years (More here)
- Most other state employees would receive a $1,000 raise in each year of the biennium
- Retirees would receive a one-time 1.6% cost of living increase in their pensions
- Principal pay schedule is based on experience (rather than ADM, as the in Senate plan) and adds a percentage to the base for FRPL population concentration by ADM. More here. (Legislative staff noted in the Appropriations Committee presentation that the formula is so complicated they cannot estimate an average pay for principals)
- There is no extra funding for art, music, and PE teachers, meaning those positions will be endangered when class size restrictions for K-3 become stricter in 2018-19, even though those subjects are required for a sound, basic education
- Textbook funding will go up by almost $11M in 2017-18, but those funds are non-recurring. Total funding would be $65.8M in the first year, $55.5M in the 2nd
- Noninstructional support items are still funded solely with lottery proceeds
- Funds an additional 9,120 students in 2017-18 (same the Senate plan), and 17,359 in 2018-19
- Adds roughly 2,400 pre-K slots each year, ending the biennium with 4,800 new spaces for a program with an average annual waitlist of 7,000 known-eligible children (same as the Senate and governor’s plan)
- Raises the cap on the percentage of student with disabilities that a district can serve from 12.5% to 13% and allots $4,125.27 for each student. (The Senate included the same funding level but capped LEAs at 12.5% of ADM)
- Cuts central office administration (LEAs) by 5.3% in 2017-18 and 10.5% in 2018-19, much less drastic than the Senate reductions (of 10.5% and almost 16%.)
- Provides for 10 exempt positions to report directly to Superintendent Mark Johnson and gives him $300,000 for his lawsuit against the State Board of Education in 2017-18 only
- Also gives the superintendent $1M to hire a 3rd party to audit NCDPI (though the state has an auditor)
- Eliminates 7 open positions and one filled job, that of a Business Technology Analyst, at NCDPI
- Sets up a calendar flexibility pilot program for 20 rural districts
- Gives NCDPI $31.7M over the two years for Business System Modernization
- Gives $9.8M per year for a pilot program that “supports school district efforts to create the organizational structure and innovative compensation methods that would allow classroom teachers to take on advanced teaching roles”
- Adds a requirement for one arts credit for high school graduation, but doesn’t fund high school arts teachers
- Includes a requirement that private schools receiving voucher money administer the Iowa Test of Basic Skills (ITBS) twice every year
- Adds $1.8M for software for voucher administrator, NCSEAA
- Gives NCSEAA $900K over two years to contract with an independent research organization for an evaluation of the “learning gains or losses of students receiving Opportunity Scholarship grants, as well as the competitive effects on public school performance on standardized tests as a result of the program”
- Changes the name of the Achievement School District to Innovative School District and lays the groundwork for a large expansion of the program (which is not operating yet) by including secondary schools rather than elementary schools only
- Creates legislative Teaching Fellows Program for STEM, Special Ed (Here is a comparison of the legislative proposal with the governor’s plan and the original Teaching Fellows program.)
- Preserves funding for the Governor’s School, a more than 50-year-old summer enrichment program for talented high schoolers that the Senate budget eliminated
- Changes the School Performance Grades to comply with ESSA; there will be two, one for growth and one for performance on a permanent 15-point scale, differing from the Senate which called for a 10-point scale
- Transfers the Education and Innovation Program from the Governor’s Office to DPI
- Adds $350,000 in the first year to School Connectivity initiative for cybersecurity
- Provides $1.2M over two years to NCDPI for competitive grants for Coding and Mobile Application programs
- Creates an Inter-Agency Council “to focus on the developmental and educational needs of children from birth to age 8” with one position in NCDPI (which will be interesting news for the Office of Early Learning)
- Does not include the Education Savings Account program created in the Senate budget, or the ban on school boards suing county commissioners over funding