Senate approves conference changes to Children's Promise Act, adds nonprofit special‑purpose school bucket

The Senate passed a conference report on House Bill 1944, commonly called the Children's Promise Act, which governs refundable income tax credits for contributions to qualifying charitable organizations. The conference report adds a new 'B3' bucket—limited to MDE‑designated special‑purpose nonprofit schools that serve students with specialized educational needs—and sets a $6 million aggregate cap for that bucket.

Under the adopted language, an individual special‑purpose nonprofit school may not receive more than $500,000 per location annually (or an aggregate cap of $1.25 million across locations). Conferees clarified that eligible schools must be nonprofit and that the Department of Education retains its designation role; the House removed an earlier proposed October fundraising cutoff, allowing eligible nonprofits to raise allocated funds later in the calendar year.

Senators emphasized that the change targets schools serving students with specialized needs—examples cited in debate included speech, dyslexia and similar programs—and that the new bucket is designed to channel credits to nonprofits not otherwise captured in the B1/B2 categories. The conference report also slightly reduced a percentage cap on another bucket to preserve overall inducements within the statutory limits.

Next steps: the bill will proceed under the enacted conference language and agencies will work out application and designation processes with MDE and the Department of Revenue.