On February 7,  the Public Education Appropriations Subcommittee met for the final time this session and prioritized their recommendations to submit to the Executive Appropriations Committee.  The Executive Appropriations Committee will take these RECOMMENDATIONS into consideration as they build the final budget.

Here are some of the highlights of the budget recommendations:

Ongoing Items

• A 6% increase on the WPU (this includes the 3.4% inflationary component)
• Public Education Equalization Funding as laid out in SB 83 ($38 million)
• Student At-Risk of Academic Failure Add-On increase ($51,700,000)
• Full-Day Kindergarten ($36,000,000)

One-Time Items

• Paid Professional Hours for Educators $64 million (the top priority)
• Flexible School Safety, Physical Facilities, and Capital Needs ($175 million)
• Instructional Delivery and Support ($50 million)
• Teen Centers for Students Experiencing Homelessness ($5 million)
• Grow your own Teacher and School Counselor Program ($14 million)

If you add the funding necessary for the additional $4,200 for the Educator Salary Adjustment, that is about another 5% on the WPU which would be over the 10% UEA requested.

Once again these are just recommendations. The Executive Appropriations Committee still needs to act and build the entire state budget by the end of the session on March 3.