Committee adds compensatory hold-harmless and school safety funding to supplemental bill

The Senate Finance Committee on April 27 considered the omnibus education supplemental package and adopted the A40 amendment, which the committee added to House File 24-33. Sen. Kunis presented the education change items and staff walked the committee through fiscal impacts and programmatic details.

Sen. Kunis described three strategies: protect students, invest in student safety, and provide hold-harmless protections for districts moving between funding formulas. Staff described a compensatory revenue adjustment estimated at about $34,790,000 for fiscal year 2027 to reduce the abrupt swings some sites would otherwise face after the 2023 formula changes. The amendment also extends prior appropriations for gender-neutral single-user restroom grants and proposes a $40,000,000 one-time general fund school safety aid and grant program for FY2027.

Committee members pressed staff on distribution mechanics. Sen. Jasinski worried that universal free school meals reduced families' incentive to complete forms historically used to route compensatory dollars to districts, asking how the adjustment would reach districts that are no longer collecting paperwork. Sen. Kunis and staff said the hold-harmless math targets site-level calculations and emphasized district responsibility to collect documentation while acknowledging demographic and enrollment shifts.

Sen. Mohammed offered an oral amendment that would allow districts to use a limited range of operating capital revenue to pay certain utility costs; counsel and staff said the change would not expand operating capital calculations but would add authorized uses (for example, utility service costs). The committee adopted the oral amendment by voice vote.

Staff also outlined base adjustments tied to other policy changes, including fiscal costs related to criminal grooming legislation and additional staffing to support paraprofessional requirements. Committee members discussed run reports showing year-over-year changes for specific districts under the proposed hold-harmless calculations; staff explained differences among columns showing prior-year actuals, current law, and proposed FY2027 amounts.

The committee adopted the A40 amendment as amended and laid House File 24-33 over for further consideration. The meeting recessed until after session; one remaining bill (omnibus labor) was noted for later consideration.