The House and Senate have yet to reach a compromise on State Supplemental Aid for schools for the upcoming academic year, and if they’re unable to do so, there will be no increase.

The latest proposals are more than one and one-third of a percent away from each other with the Democrat controlled Senate wanting to offer two and five-eighths percent and the Republican controlled House locked in at one and a quarter percent.

District 10 State Senator Jake Chapman says it’s unfortunate that it is taking as long as it is, but he doesn’t feel there’s room to budge.

“If it ends up at zero percent, that’s politics.  Unfortunately that would be just because of politics, to try proving a point.”

Chapman says going above that one and a quarter percent will require cuts to something like mental health or water quality initiatives.  Even with those cuts, he says it won’t be enough.

“When 55 percent of your budget goes to education and another 28 percent goes to health and human services, which most of that money is required under federal law to fund Medicaid and Medicare and those programs, you have very little discretionary money.  So again, I’m hopeful we can get something done here so our educators know how much money is going to be coming in from the state side, but time will tell.”

Chapman says if State Supplemental Aid was set at the four percent initially proposed by the Senate, they would have to cut or raise revenue by $600 million dollars, or almost 10 percent of the state budget.