Iowa House passes 2% school funding increase

DES MOINES, Iowa (Gray Media Iowa Capitol Bureau) - Iowa House lawmakers passed a bill Thursday increasing school funding by 2% per pupil for the next school year in a 58-25 vote.

The Senate initially passed the bill last week with a 1.75% increase. A House committee amended that amount to 2.25% earlier this week, but lawmakers lowered it to 2% on the House floor, reflecting a compromise between House and Senate leaders.

The bill also provides $7 million for paraeducator and support personnel pay.

Representative Dan Gehlbach says the percentage amounts to $8,148 per student.

Five House Democrats spoke against the bill, saying Republicans are underfunding public education.

“The single greatest indicator of future success in life is access to quality education,” said Rep. Josh Turek, D-Council Bluffs. “By underfunding our public schools, we are robbing the next generation of Iowans from that opportunity. Every single Iowa child deserves a world class education.”

House Democrats proposed an amendment that would have increased school funding by 5%. The amendment failed.

School districts have warned that any funding increase below 3% would not meet inflation and would cause cuts to classes and increase classroom sizes.

House Speaker Pat Grassley, R-New Hartford, said the Republican bill provides certainty to schools as they work on budgets for the next school year.

“What we’ve been hearing from our schools is get us the money, get us locked in, we’re coming up on budget time,” Grassley said. “That’s why we made this deal right now to get this done and then give certainty to our schools.”

The spending agreement matches what Gov. Kim Reynolds proposed for school funding. The bill now returns to the Senate for final approval before heading to the governor’s desk.

Iowa law says lawmakers must pass a school funding budget within 30 days of the start of session. That deadline was last week. This week marks the first deadline for all bills to make it out of committees.