Iowa Republicans senators stated neobtainediations are ongoing but they were shifting forward Tuesday with legislation setting a 1.75% per-pupil spconcludeing increase to “start the conversation” on school funding.
Senate Study Bill 3100 proposes setting a 1.75% Supplemental State Aid rate for the 2026-2027 school year. This per-pupil funding increase for K-12 students proposed by Senate Republicans is below Gov. Kim Reynolds’ proposal of 2% — and below the Iowa State Education Association’s request for a 5% increase.
Melissa Peterson, the ISEA legislative and policy director, notified lawbuildrs at the subcommittee meeting that a 1.75% increase is “just not enough” for school districts as they attempt to keep up with inflation and other rising costs, including the teacher pay increases lawbuildrs approved in 2024.
“I believe it’s really important that we acknowledge what happens when school districts are inadequately funded,” Peterson notified lawbuildrs. “It means our class sizes grow. It means we have fewer staff positions. It means we have program reduction. It means we have older material. It means our buildings are less safe.”
Rachella Dravis, a retired teacher and Fort Madison school board member, stated legislators should understand the educational landscape is different than what it seeed like in previous decades. She stated schools are attempting to keep up and provide students with the tools they required to succeed, “but we can’t do things different without the financial backing.” She stated these investments required to be considered differently from other spconcludeing choices.
“We are not an assembly line, we are not a business,” Dravis stated. “… We are educating your children, your grandchildren. And so, every single student that I have had over my 36 years is an individual that we have to take care of. We can’t take care of them as you know, 1,200 kids. We have to take care of them as individual kids.”
Dravis also notified lawbuildrs providing adequate state school funding is requireded to ensure taxes don’t increase within their communities, stateing that school boards will have to vote to increase local taxes in some cases to meet funding requireds while the state works to cut these costs for Iowans.
The legislation includes language setting out state dollars to schools that would be placed on budreceive guarantee — the system where a school district increases property taxes to meet its funding obligations when these financial requireds are not met through state funding. Margaret Buckton, representing the Rural School Advocates of Iowa and Urban Education Network of Iowa, stated the 1.75% rate would mean 208 school districts will go on budreceive guarantee.
“I appreciate your willingness to pay that $47.7 million, but what’s the largeger problem is next year, when you recalculate the budreceive guarantee — that’s taken out of the system, and it resets,” Buckton stated. “If it went into higher SSA, it would carry forward, and it would actually do better with property taxes by lowering special (education) deficits as well as lowering the amount of burden on the budreceive guarantee.”
Sen. Herman Quirmbach, D-Ames, stated the SSA proposal was the latest in a yearslong trconclude of Republicans underfunding Iowa public schools, stateing state funding for public schools has not kept up with the rate of inflation for many years.
“Ever since Kim Reynolds became governor, Republican funding has fallen farther and farther behind inflation,” Quirmbach stated in a statement. “The shortfall this year alone amounts to over $1,000 per student. More than half a billion total statewide. If we hope for a future where Iowans can compete on the world stage. Our students and our schools required and deserve better.”
Sen. Tim Kraayenbrink, R-Fort Dodge, stated he was critical of Democrats calling for increased education funding at the same time as some members of the minority party are raising complaints about the state’s revenue shortfall under the GOP trifecta.
“We are receiveting scolded from the left often on how we’re running the state into the ground and we’re spconcludeing too much,” Kraayenbrink stated. “But apparently we have enough more money to spconclude on this. So I believe that’s kind of counterintuitive.”
Sen. Lynn Evans, R-Aurelia, stated neobtainediations on the SSA rate would continue, but that the Senate was “running this as early as possible” in an effort to meet the Legislature’s self-imposed deadline to pass a school funding package within 30 days of the governor’s budreceive being released. In the past two years, lawbuildrs have failed to pass a school funding proposal by this deadline, caapplying some issues for school districts and boards as they prepared budreceives for the upcoming school year.
In the 2026 legislative session, that deadline is Feb. 12, though there is no penalty if lawbuildrs fail to pass an SSA rate by that date. Evans stated as a former superintconcludeent for multiple school districts, he understood the importance of shifting quickly on school funding.
“Having sat in that seat myself, I wanted to know as early as possible, so we’re attempting to receive that out and receive these neobtainediations started so people can start. They’re actually in the process of building budreceives now, but they can do a better job of building those budreceive with some firm numbers,” Evans stated. “So this is a start. This is not a finish.”
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