Photo: Kawee Srital-on / Moment / Getty Images
(Des Moines, IA) -- With eight days to go until school districts need to submit their final budget proposals, state lawmakers haven't told them how much aid they're getting. However, Republican leaders in both chambers say that could change this week. State Sen. Amy Sinclair (R-Allerton) serves as the Iowa Senate President.
"It's important that we waited for the Revenue Estimating Conference from March," Sinclair says. "We know that commodity prices are down, and that impacts our overall revenues for this state. So, we needed to see where that was to see the number that's going out for school funding."
Governor Kim Reynolds and the state Senate are proposing a 2% increase, while the package from the House of Representatives includes a 2.25% increase with additional one-time funding. Iowa Speaker Pat Grassley (R-New Hartford) says those are part of the conversation.
"I think you're going to see some of the other pieces as part of that conversation," Grassley says. "We talked about transportation equity. We talked about per-pupil-equity...some of those things are being actively discussed as part of a potential solution on how we can move forward with this."
The bill is on the eligibility calendar for consideration in the Iowa Senate as early as today. Schools must submit their final proposals for the 2025-26 year by April 15th.