Issue Position: Education & the Courts

Issue Position

The school formula has been debated, tweaked and abolished over the past few years. This year the Legislature established a "new" funding formula that the courts have essentially approved. The next steps in school finance are to fund the formula and meet the conditions of the court in the Montoy decision.

To try to solve the problem, in May of 2018, we voted to add $105 million per year for the next five years ($525 million) for the K-12 budget. These funds began reaching our districts July 1, 2018. USD 383 has benefited nearly $3 million this year. The opinion of the state Supreme Court was that this is still inadequate. The decision also requires us to increase funding for Special Education to 92% of the actual costs, an increase of about $30 million/year for the next four years. And, the state will have to go back and make up for not recognizing, and equalizing, increases in the consumer price index (CPI) by adding an additional 1.44% ($90Million/year) for the next four years.

At the same time, recognizing the hardships the state has endured under the severe tax cuts of 2013-2017, the Court is allowing us time to get our revenues back up before imposing any new requirements. With the increased revenues we are seeing so far this year, these conditions can be met.

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