The Senate Education Committee stripped out innovative school funding amendments out of a bill after committee members declared the ideas move not germane to the original bill. They also amended the bill so that it resembled a measure that died in a house committee earlier this year.
Speaker of the House Steve Harshman and House Education Chairman David Northrup were frustrated with the move. They disagreed that the funding proposals didn’t belong in the bill. Northrup says new revenue for education is needed.
“So we are trying to just modernize it, we are looking at this new online sales tax. This could blow up to be a $40-50 million tax, so why not use it. This corporate filing fees if it goes the way it’s projected to go, nobody’s used to that, so why not use it. Somehow we have to have new money to put into education.”
Northrup estimates that the bill now probably amounts to a $13 million cut to education funding. The bill moves to the Senate floor for further debate.