Senate committee backs amendment to add special-education weightings; charter inclusion approved

The Senate Finance Committee on March 16 adopted amendments to a committee substitute for House Bill 5453 that would change how state school aid accounts for special-education students.

Committee counsel told members the original House measure proposed block grants of $6,100 per student for county school boards and $8,600 per student for public charter schools and would create a supplemental school aid fund with per-pupil allotments for tier 2 ($3,050) and tier 3 ($6,100) special-needs students. A proposed strike-and-insert amendment discussed and adopted by the committee instead adds additional weighting for special-education students: level 2 students would count as 1.2 students and level 3 students would count as 1.3 for purposes of base funding calculations. Counsel said the additional weighted funds would be exempt from block-grant spending limits and required to be spent on direct instruction for special-education students; the state board would monitor expenditures.

Senators asked whether charter schools would be included. Uriah Cummings, school financial operations officer for the West Virginia Department of Education, told the committee that the department could include charter school students in the weighting but would need to collect additional data; he said doing so would not materially change the bill's fiscal impact and estimated the fiscal note at roughly $7.8 million. After discussion, the committee adopted a clarifying amendment to make the tiered funding apply to public charter school students as well. The committee also adopted other cleanup and timing amendments and voted to report the committee substitute as amended to the full Senate.

The transcript records voice votes; no roll-call tallies with member names were provided.