NWAOnline’s Legislative Coverage

Up to $15 million will go to the state’s public school teachers’ health insurance fund. While that wouldn’t be enough to stave off expected rate increases, it would cut the increases by up to three-fourths.

This is not simple.

The money would come from the Uniform Rate of Tax, the 25 mills of local property tax that each school district turns over to the state for redistribution to schools through the state school funding formula. The state adds other revenues such as state sales taxes to make sure all state public school districts get adequate and roughly equal school funding.

The collections from that uniform rate was expected to grow by 4.5 percent this year. Well, the latest state projection say it’s going to be more than that.

Any amount in excess of 4.5 percent, up to $15 million, will go to teacher’s insurance. The state school funding formula bill for the next fiscal year will be amended Monday to reflect that, said Sen. Shane Broadway, author of the school funding bill.