LEGISLATIVE UPDATE
5-12-08

SENATE FINANCE COMMITTEE
REVIEWS & VOTES DOWN HOUSE BILL 1642

Summary: The Senate Finance Committee did not act to support any of the 5 amendments submitted by members of the House and Senate. After dismissing all amendments, the committee took up the original bill and voted 6:1 Inexpedient to Legislate (a vote essentially recommending the full Senate vote down HB 1642). The full Senate will vote on HB 1642, most likely Wednesday or Thursday. The Senate can still support HB 1642 by a majority voting for the bill on the floor.

No one today mentioned that the State Board of Education had voted to urge the Senate to support funding for the state’s charter schools. The charter schools were very discouraged by the lack of support for their schools.

Details:

Five, or six, or seven different amendments were advanced and explained to the Senate Finance Committee before the committee took a break in support of a memorial service for police officers. After the ceremony, the Finance Committee reconvened and probed details for each amendment (and the amendments to amendments).

Amendment #1 (1806H): From Ken Weyler: proposed that the $2700 be funded by the state for the 7 independent charter schools. To the committee he said “we are talking very few students –a few hundred out of 200,000—and very little money, e.g. less than a fraction of one percent.”

Amendment #2 (1804H): From Ken Weyler: proposed that complete funding at the 80% level be provided by the state and the current funding system be replaced. To the committee he explained: “Some of these students are being counted by the districts, so this is a transfer. Only 6 students are from donor towns that don’t receive state aid—so these would need to be funded from the budget. This is very little money.”

Amendment #3 (1829 replacing 1824H): From Kim Casey: proposed that CSI charter school be added to the 7 independent charter schools that have no specific district support [Note: previously, CSI has been discussed as a locally-affiliated and locally-authorized charter school] with ½ of the $2700 for the independent charter schools provided by the state and ½ of the $2700 for the independent charter schools provided by school districts. This was discussed as reasonable since the districts continue to count charter school students in their ADM-R even while the students are counted in the charter school ADM-R. To the committee she said: “I saw this as a compromise—assuming the total amount needed to keep these schools alive for one year was 1.1 million—asking the districts to pick up a small portion for the short term and provide support for their students. We need to try to keep these schools alive.” This amendment reduced the state aid needed to $621,000.

Amendment #4 (1830 replacing 1825H): From Kim Casey provided some funding to all the charter schools as originally proposed with the state and district each contributing a portion. This would cost the state $730,750. When asked how districts can make any contribution after their budgets are set, Casey responded: “There are always adjustments in the budget.” [In fact, Representative Casey is correct and a tuition adjustment of $1350 would not be an adjustment outside of typical adjustments districts make within their budgets each year.]

Amendment #5: From Senator Fuller Clark was a long-term funding solution for chartered public schools, integrating the state’s new funding system for funding state aid to all public schools beginning 2009-2010. This amendment had the resident district keeping charter school students in their ADM count for state aid even though students are actually served by the charter school and routing a small amount of the district’s charter student funding to the charter school. To the committee she said “Since one of our objectives is to lower the dropout rate, these schools are creating a resource not only for the students but also for the school districts.” “Currently we know the school districts receive money for attendance of charter students even though the students go to the charter school—the state aid funding should be following the child.”

The Department of Education provided considerable data to the committee. Sally Fellows said the estimated charter school enrollment for 2008-2009 was 1,150 students. This made the 7 charter schools struggling for survival all look at each other, for their estimates are approximately 400 students. She passed out a list of which students attend from which towns, using last year’s data, saying next year probably more students would attend from the same towns. Several senators noticed that the numbers from any one town are very small indeed, as Representative Weyler had suggested. With few exceptions, 1 or 2 students attend from each different town.

Special education and district responsibility were discussed with some confusion. The Senators were told that districts should count charter school students in their ADM-R even though students don’t attend district schools because the districts continue to have potential administrative responsibility. This also made charter school administrators confused since they have independent schools except for special education, and even then some charter schools report that certain districts are not providing any special education funding or services to students in the charter schools (even though districts receive base funding for these students plus additional funding related to special education).