Senators are making more major changes to legislation meant to bolster school funding, particularly for special education costs.
This latest change is coming with just a couple of days remaining in the regular session that ends Saturday.
So agreement between the two chambers is also a race against the calendar.
“There’s a lot of pressure to reform this school aid formula somehow,” said Senator Ben Queen, R-Harrison. “Hopefully we can get this cross finish line in the next — how many hours we got left?”
Financial support for West Virginia’s public schools has been a recurring theme of this year’s legislative session, although additional dollars are not coming right away.
In December, the state school board approved consolidations and closures of more than a dozen schools across six counties. The state board recently agreed to two more closures in Wayne County. The state also experienced a wave of school consolidations last year.
A major aspect of financial pressure on local school systems is the cost of special education because some students need extra help like one-on-one instruction or nurses.
“It’s important to the Senate and the entire Legislature to look at the funding formula as it relates to special needs students, and what this bill does that we just passed out increases funding for students who are tier two and tier three special education,” said Senate Finance Chairman Jason Barrett, R-Berkeley.
Last week, the House of Delegates passed legislation that will change funding for local school systems, although it wouldn’t kick in until three years from now.
Under the plan by delegates, all county school boards would be funded by block grants of $6,100 per enrolled student, starting in 2029. County boards that have fewer than 1,200 enrolled pupils per county would be funded at the minimum level of 1,200 students.
Furthermore, the bill that came out of the House establishes three tiers for additional funding for special needs students.
The Senate Finance Committee today changed all that.
A new version discussed and advanced by the committee removed the entire block grant structure that had passed the House. So that is currently wiped out.
Instead, senators rolled in new provisions that would add additional weighting for level two and level three special education students.
With the additional weighting. Level two, special education students count as 1.2 students. Level three, special education students count as 1.3 students.
That would not occur in the coming fiscal year. Lawmakers passed a budget bill last week. So the financial change in the school funding bill that is still running would would take effect starting July 1, 2027.
“Doing the tier two and tier three starting next year is a start, and I’m hoping after that we can roll in the tier one kids. We can do a phase-in,” said Senate Education Chairwoman Amy Nichole Grady.
Grady, in a hallway interview, said she usually tries to discuss changes with her counterparts in the House of Delegates. But with a hectic pace in the final days of the session, she acknowledged that she had not managed to do that so far in this case.
“We just haven’t been able to connect on that since we decided to do this, so I hope they’ll accept it,” Grady said.