Oklahoma Session Nearing It's End, Lawmakers Still Disagree On Education

Today is the deadline for bills to be heard in the opposite chamber’s committee. After a full week of meetings between the House, Senate and Governor, there’s still a lot up in the air for education legislation this session.

There are some key differences in the two chamber’s plans- mostly impacting funding for rural or smaller schools versus urban and suburban.

The House’s Original Plan

The House’s original education plan was set to cost around $800 million dollars, between a tax credit for private and homeschooling, and public-school funding.

The plan was broken down into three parts, with a total of $500 million in increased funding for public schools.

1. $150 Million in financial support used to increase teacher salaries, not administration, by $2,500, regardless of what they are currently being paid or the minimum salary schedule.
2. $50 million to be distributed in a proportional manner the same as the Redbud School Grants, a grant funding for low-income districts.
3. $300 million distributed to public school districts on a per-student basis.

The House’s original plan includes $300 million to be distributed to public school districts on a per-pupil basis, but with a cap at $2 million per school.

That would include up to $5,000 credits for private school students (per-student, per-year) and up to $2,500 credits for homeschool students (per-student, per-year).

These will also only be expensed for qualified purchases with receipts. Some of the qualified expenses include tuition and fees, tutoring services, textbooks, curriculum or other instructional materials, and nationally standardized assessments.

Today, House Speaker Charles McCall said their plan will likely cost closer to $670 million, instead of the original projected $800 million.

Senate Changes To The House Plan

The Senate made some key changes to the house’s plan on the floor a few weeks ago.

The Senate’s school choice initiative looked very different from the House. They put an income cap at $250,000 per household in order to qualify for the tax credit.

They increased the private school amount to $7,500 per-student and lowered the homeschooling credit to $1,000 per-family.

The Senate suggested a $248 million investment in teacher pay raises, combining a bill they had already been working to pass this session with what the House sent over. 

1. $3,000 for zero to four years of service
2. $4,000 for five to nine years of service
3. $5,000 for 10 to 14 years of service 
4. $6,000 for 15 (+) years of service

Senate President Pro Tem Greg Treat says the way the House originally wrote it, it was not equal to districts across the state. They said it would give more money to rural schools.

The Senate’s $630 million plan would give an additional $216 million will go into the state aid formula, Treat says this equates to an additional $414 dollars per kid regardless if they’re attending an urban or rural school.

What Happens Next?

Now the two chambers and Governor are negotiating the plans, hoping to come to a compromise on one plan. 

“It's taking all the air out of the room on all other negotiations without a doubt,” said Senate President Pro Tem Greg Treat. “I don't feel real hopeful this week based on progress,” said Treat.

“I'm pleased with what happened this week,” said House Speaker Charles McCall.

House and Senate leadership are still disagreeing on the progress of their negotiations.

“We're negotiating all points. Having an income limit was extremely important to my caucus,” said Treat.

“If you put an income cap on this tax credit- you cannot say that every student and every parent in the state of Oklahoma wins,” said McCall.

The Senate voted to put a $250,000 income cap per-family on the tax credit bill.

“The issue of the Oklahoma student fund is a must for the House of Representatives.”

That’s the House’s public school funding plan that the Senate says will give unequal funding to rural versus urban schools.

“We could run more money through the formula to help shore up larger schools,” said McCall.

The two chambers say they have the same goal- getting money to public education and giving school choice- but how they plan to do that is where they disagree.

“We obviously had a very different teacher pay - theirs was $2,500 only for classroom teachers. Ours went up to $6,000; from $6,000- $3,000 depending on service,” said Treat.

The bill Treat is talking about, the Senate’s scaled teacher pay raise bill, wasn’t heard in the House committee today.

“That's one of the things that we were negotiating on in terms of the education package, doesn't surprise me at all that an individual bill on that was not advanced,” said McCall.

McCall said this is also very standard, that there were House bills not heard on the Senate side as well.

With over a month left in session, there’s still hope the two chambers will finally come to an agreement.

“I think we always find a way,” said McCall.

“We’re committed to infusing money into the public school system into teachers' pockets, a fair and equitable way to do that plus school choice,” said Treat.