Bills for New Funding Formula and Revenues Introduced

House Bill 331, sponsored by Representative Mimi Stewart has been introduced.  The formula laid out in House Bill 331  provides for a new public school funding formula and the maintenance and periodic recalibration of the formula.Since the new formula radically changes the distribution of public school funding, it is important that the new money be place before the redistribution takes place.  As a result a tax bill, House Bill 346, has also been introduced by Representative Stewart.  This bill provides the new funding needed through a combination of repeal or recent high earnere tax cuts and a half percent increase in Gross Receipts Tax. Together the two methods will raise some $350 million for school year.

Using the revenues form House Bill 346 and the new funding formula laid out in House Bill 331,  there is sufficient revenue to meet the constitutional requirement to fund schools sufficiently.

 

The legislation provides for a new public school funding formula and the maintenance and periodic recalibration of the formula. The bill provides for a longer school year for students, a longer work year for teachers and other instruction staff (one additional day in 2010-2011 and four days when fully implemented--the bill requires that the days be paid for with additonal compensation), and codifies the Educational Plan for Student Success (EPSS) as the accountability instrument to be used to verify appropriate programs of instruction are provided.

For the first time in New Mexico's recent history an empirical study determined the costs of ensuring that all students in the state of New Mexico have access to the programs and resources necessary to have sufficient education as required by the State Constitution.

The bill lays out the foundation for a new formula projecting the sufficient per-student cost calculation for school districts and charters schools. It contains definitions and cost factors consisting of: poverty, English language learners, special education, mobility, percent of district enrollment by set grades, and the weighted index of staff qualifications. It identifies the sufficient per-student cost multiplier and guidance about how to complete the sufficient per-student cost calculation. Methodologies are identified for factoring in growth; new school demographics; special education; implementation of intervention strategies related to lowering special education identification rates; annual updates of cost factors; and annual adjustment of the base per-student cost based on appropriations.

Follow this link to send an email to House Members asking them to pass the new funding formula and to sufficiently fund our schools