Last week, House Bill 9, which is legislation to fund charter schools, was pulled from the House Education Committee. It leaves minimal time for the bill to potentially move through the legislature, but it’s still very possible.
Dr. Randy Poe, Executive Director, Northern Kentucky Education Council, keeps up with the legislation that is going through Frankfort on behalf of the group’s members. One of those bills the group is concerned about is HB9.
“House Bill 9 is one of those bills that’s a major concern and still is a major concern because the session’s not over,” Poe said.
House Bill 9 would give charter schools permanent funding, which would come from the same sources that public schools are funded, such as local and state taxes.
“This bill will allow outsiders to authorize unlimited charter schools in Kentucky and create a mechanism to fund them,” said KY United 120, a group that supports educators, state workers, and the families and communities we served in all of Kentucky’s 120 counties, in a statement. “Kentucky has never seen a charter school bill that will be as detrimental as HB 9 to public education along with the health of our local communities.”
HB9 is also tied in with the Senate budget, which was released earlier this month.
One of the tools that the Senate is using as a bargaining tool for passage of HB9 is full-day kindergarten, according to Poe, as it wasn’t included in the budget.
“Of course within the budget is full-day kindergarten, which they passed last year as part of passing House Bill 563, which seems to be being held as leverage for other particular bills by the Senate,” Poe said. “They promised last year full-day K funding.”
Poe noted that Senate President Robert Stivers talked about the importance of early childhood education to the Kentucky Chamber, but providing full-day kindergarten for children “is being held as some type of leverage within the Senate because it’s not being funded,” Poe said. “Last year, they said they would continue to fund it.”
When questioned whether or not full-day kindergarten is being used as a bargaining chip is speculation, Poe said it’s not.
“I’m not sure that it’s speculation,” Poe said. “It was part of the process that we were informed about that the Senate said in order to get full-day kindergarten, we need to create an entirely new bureaucracy with House Bill 9 on charter school funding.”
While House Bill 9 is a bill that Northern Kentucky educators are worried about, it’s not the only one. Transportation and SEEK (Support Education Excellence in Kentucky) funding are two things legislators are also concerned about as the legislature wraps up in the next few weeks.
“At a time, when the legislature is not fully funding things they had passed in the past, for example, transportation,” Poe said. “Funding hasn’t increased since approximately 2004-2006, and the local districts have to keep funding that.”
Bellevue Independent School District Superintendent Dr. Robb Smith echoed Poe’s comments on transportation. SEEK funding is also on Smith’s radar.
“When considering inflation, our SEEK numbers should be well over $4,700 per student,” Smith said, noting that the state is currently sitting at $4,000. Both the legislature’s budget and the governor’s budget, including increases in SEEK funding, it’s not the increase that Smith mentioned above.
In Gov. Andy Beshear’s budget, there is a 16.9 percent increase in SEEK funding, which is $685 million more than the House budget over two years. The House Republican plan seeks to increase the “base SEEK guarantee” of $4,100 in the first fiscal year and $4,200 in the second. Every dollar that SEEK increased under the Republican plan would lead to an additional $800,000 investment in public school districts. The base figures in Beshear’s plan would be $4,300 per student in 2023 and $4,500 per student in 2024.
When the Senate released their budget, Sen. Chris McDaniel (R-Taylor Mill), the chair of the Senate’s Appropriations and Revenue Committee, noted there would be SEEK funding. The funding for SEEK in the Senate budget would look pretty similar to that of the House’s budget. McDaniel pointed out in his press conference that the Kentucky Department of Education received about $1.9 billion from the American Rescue Plant Act and the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act.
“But we felt it was still important to push additional funds through the SEEK formula,” McDaniel said. “So in year one, we increased it to $4,100, and in year two, we increased it to $4,200.”