With the 88th Legislature convening for its third Special Session on Monday, the Senate Education and Senate Finance committees worked quickly to approve legislation intended to be in line with the Governor's charges for the Special Session. 

On Monday, the Senate Finance Committee advanced Senate Bill 2 which would provide some additional funding for various public education programs. The bill would raise the basic allotment by $75 – from $6,160 to $6,236 per student – and decopule future increases from mandatory compensation increases. The basic allotment has not been increased since 2016, and with 17% inflation since that time, estimates show that it would take an increase in the basic allotment of more than $900 just to restore schools to the same level of funding at that time. SB 2 would also increase the School Safety Allotment from $10 to $20 per student and increase the per-campus allotment from $15,000 to $30,000. The bill also includes a one-time teacher retention bonus of $10,000 per teacher in school districts with less than 5,000 students and $3,000 per teacher for larger districts. Those bonuses would be applied in 2023-24 and would be converted into salary going forward. 

On Tuesday, the Senate Education Committee advanced SB 1, which would create an education savings account program. The bill would annually provide $8,000 for each eligible student to pay for private school tuition and other related educational expenses, such as uniforms, textbooks, tests, tutoring, transportation, and educational therapy. It would be funded with $500 million previously appropriated in the 88th Regular Session by the legislature. As a reminder, the current basic per-student allotment for public school districts is $6,160. 

Unlike the Senate's previous education savings account legislation, SB 1 does not include homeschool students. 

The ESA program in SB 1 would be overseen by the comptroller's office which would authorize five educational assistance organizations (EAOs) to assist in administering the program. The comptroller's office would be entitled to 3% of the overall funding and the EAOs would be entitled to 5%. That means a total of $40 million of funding designated for education would be going to the comptroller's office and these administrative organizations. 

SB 1 would also cap the participation in the ESA program. Of the available positions: 

• No more than 40% would go to students who qualify for free or reduced lunch; 
• No more than 30% would be for students who are in a household with a total income that is between 185-500% of the federal poverty guidelines; 
• No more than 20% would be for students who have a disability; and 
• No more than 10%  would be for students who attended public, private, or home school in the previous school year. 

After hearing considerable testimony on both sides of the topic, the committee passed SB 1 along party lines 10-3. 

Both SB 1 and SB 2 will now go to the full Senate for consideration.