Democrats in the Iowa Senate have voted to provide K-through-12 schools a six percent increase in general state aid for the school year that starts in the fall of 2015. Senator Herman Quirmbach, a Democrat from Ames, says those students should be the state’s first priority.
According to state law, legislators are to make a school funding decision 18 months in advance of the start of the school year, but Republican Governor Terry Branstad and Republicans who control the House don’t want to follow the law this year.
The only Republican to speak when the issue came up for a vote in the senate was Senator David Johnson of Ocheyedan. He pointed to the proposal’s two-hundred-22-million dollar ($222 million) price tag.
Republican leaders in the House say they do not intend to consider the Senate Democrats’ spending plan for schools.
