Regional Schools Study

Regional school districts are structured and function differently than municipal districts, but they are lumped into the same funding calculations and governance structures. Senate Bill 236 would establish a commission to study regional district foundation budgets and make recommendations based on their findings. You can find a short document detailing the potential impacts for this bill here.

Partial Excerpt: "There shall be a commission to review the way that regional school districts are funded and recommend a framework that better accounts for differences between the towns that make-up these districts and how the funding is distributed...The review shall include, but not be limited to, those components of the regional school district foundation budget created pursuant to section 3 of chapter 70 and subsequent changes made to the foundation budget by law. In addition, the commission shall seek to determine and recommend measures to promote the adoption of ways in which resources can be most effectively utilized and consider various models of efficient and effective resource allocation. "

History: S217 was passed by the Joint Committee on Education in January 2018 and assigned to the House Ways and Means Committee in March 2018; however, while the resulting bill S2325 references S217 and a number of other bills, it does not specifically call out the language in S217. The study was filed under House Budget amendment #31, but failed in a roll call vote. It was included in the Senate Ways and Means budget, but failed in the Final FY19 Budget. S236 was filed by Senator Chandler in the 191st Congress in January 2019 and has been assigned to the Joint Education Committee.