As I write this, we are in our final hours of “funnel week.” In order for our individually filed bills to be available for floor debate they must be passed by their respective committee by Feb. 20. That deadline creates a flurry of activity as we press to get our individual bills through their subcommittees and through the full committee. Several of the bills I’ve filed have passed the funnel deadline, including a bill to give courts greater subpoena powers over online transactions by those that are behind on child support, a bill to make it illegal in Iowa to give an employer a false Social Security number, a bill to make it illegal to falsely claim education credentials and a bill to strike land use planning principles from the code.

This week, much progress was made on securing a final deal for Supplemental State Aid for K-12 Schools. On Monday, the House Appropriations Committee met to pass the Senate’s SSA bill, SF 2201, with an amendment. While the Senate’s bill originally called for setting SSA at 1.75%, our amendment set SSA at 2.25%. It also included $14 million to increase pay for educational support staff (para-educators). Our goal in fighting for this funding every year for the past few years is to raise the pay for our paraprofessionals who do such essential, difficult work. Throughout the week, House and Senate leadership worked to settle on an SSA bill that could pass both chambers. The final agreement includes several provisions. It sets SSA at 2%. This brings the SSA to $8,148 per student, an increase of $160 over last school year. It makes changes to the enrollment count process to ensure schools are funded accurately based on their actual student numbers. It shifts the funding source for the budget guarantee to the state, ensuring local property taxes don’t rise to meet the budget guarantee requirement. House Republicans also secured $7 million of the $14 million we originally proposed to increase pay for paraprofessionals. House Republicans will continue to fight for the other $7 million in the appropriations negotiations later in session.

We often hear the complaint from the Democrats that we are “underfunding public schools,” but the numbers seem to tell a different story. According to the most recent Certified Annual Report related to Iowa school funding, Iowa public schools spent $23,711.08 per K-12 student during the 2023-24 school year. The total number of students that school year was 483,698.7. The average class size in Iowa is roughly 20 students. That means Iowa is spending almost $474,000 per classroom. The average teacher salary in Iowa is about $63,500. With benefits included, it is about $85,000. That means roughly $389,000 of non-teacher salary spending per classroom! That is hardly “underfunding public schools.”

Iowa’s K-12 public schools receive funding from three levels of government. Local, state and federal governments all provide various amounts of tax dollars for K-12 school districts. Across all three levels of funding plus various other financing sources, the total amount of taxpayer funding in the 2023-24 school year for public schools was about $11.6 billion. That is certainly a significant taxpayer investment into Iowa’s K-12 public schools.

As always, I look forward to seeing you at the capitol, or in the district.