On Thursday, Governor Kim Reynolds signed a bill appropriating around $99 million in new money to K-12 education for the next school year.

Senate File 2142 was the compromise between the $103 million in funding proposed by the governor and House of Representatives, and the $95 million proposed by the Senate. The figures represent an increase of 2.3% in per pupil funding for the next fiscal year. State Senator Jake Chapman, (R) District 10, says it took the Legislature a little longer than usual to approve the State Supplemental Aid amount for public schools, though he emphasizes that they wanted to get the number just right to avoid over-promising.

“What I’m really proud about is when we (Republicans) have said we were going to give that money, we have followed through every single year. So what we had seen in past years was that oftentimes there would be an agreement that they would give $140 million to education; but then would come in and only fund $60 million of it. And that gets put on the backs of property tax payers, and that’s something that we don’t think is responsible. So every time we have come up with a number for what we’d put in education we have funded that, we will fund it again this year as well.”

The $99 million in total funding includes $85.5 million in a base funding increase, as well as $7.7 million for transportation equity and $5.9 million for per pupil equity, which both help rural districts keep up with urban schools that don’t need as much financial support. To learn more about this and other topics from the current legislative session, click the link below to listen to the recent Perry Fareway Let’s Talk Dallas County program with Chapman.

https://www.raccoonvalleyradio.com/2020/03/09/lets-talk-dallas-county-3-9-2020-jake-chapman/