The new chairman of the House Education Committee says he wants to make public school funding a major focus.
“I can tell you that my focus on education this year is going to be on the school aid funding formula,” Delegate Joe Statler, R-Monongalia, said on “Talk of the Town” on WAJR Radio.
Statler was named the new chairman of the committee on Tuesday. The prior chairman, Joe Ellington, is changing roles to be deputy speaker of the House.
Statler has served in the House of Delegates from 2014 to 2018 and then from 2020 to the present. Statler served on the Monongalia County Board of Education from 2002 to 2012.
The switch in leadership on the education committee comes as state officials are having serious and complicated discussions about the state school aid formula, which is largely based on student population.
In December, the state school board approved consolidations and closures of more than a dozen schools across six counties. The state also experienced a wave of school consolidations last year.
Meanwhile, Hancock County has led a potential wave of local school systems with emerging financial crises.
“We’re seeing these counties across the state with the money that they’re getting in spending a lot more than they’re getting into the system,” Statler said. “So we’ve got to see what we can do to remedy that.”
State schools Superintendent Michele Blatt has suggested to lawmakers that one area to examine could be financial support for special education students. Generally, Blatt said, the available financial support for special education students compared to what’s needed is about half.
Statler today alluded to examining the financial support for special education students.
“We may not be able to really do everything that we want to do, but we’re going to take some pretty serious looks at how it is, especially in the area of special needs,” Statler said.
Education is one of the biggest areas of state spending, but Gov. Patrick Morrisey’s proposed $5.5 billion general revenue budget does not reflect any kind of increase in spending on the state aid formula for public schools.
The Senate Education Committee this week began examining a bill to establish an emergency fund for financially distressed counties. But the committee did not act on the bill, intending to provide more time to ask questions and consider what action is truly necessary.
Senator Eric Tarr, R-Putnam, has said lawmakers should take a broad approach to school funding. And he said the governor should begin playing a lead role in that.
“It needs to be a governor-led initiative, I believe, but it needs to be worked on collaboratively between the Legislature and the governor to solve that problem because this will not be a popular fix,” Tarr said on MetroNews Talkline.
He said this would have to be a long-term effort with collaboration between the governor, the Senate and the House of Delegates with a focus on communication to the public.
“This is gonna be a generational change,” Tarr said of the way West Virginia funds public schools. “I mean, it’s the one we’re operating now since the 80s. So you’re you’re going to have to have the governor’s bully pulpit to go out and explain why this is good for West Virginia.”