One of the top priorities every Iowa Legislative Session is the state’s education budget for k-12 public education. 

District 47 Representative Phil Thompson of Jefferson says within the first 30 days of when each legislative session begins, they are supposed to finalize the potential increase in the State Supplemental Aid (SSA). Thompson believes this year’s SSA increase for additional funding for k-12 public education is going to be between 2 and 2.5-percent. Last year, the Legislature approved 2.06-percent increase. SSA is what school districts use to base their next fiscal year’s budget on. 

Along with that, Thompson is also looking forward to increasing the transportation equity fund, a priority of the Greene County School District. 

“We are going to increase the investment in the transportation equity fund and take that closer to the statewide average. I do think Greene County and the rest of our school districts, I hope will be satisfied.”

Greene County Schools received a boost in the transportation fund last year, which helped with them being the eighth largest geographic school district in the state.