DOVER, Del. (AP) - The Delaware Senate has approved a bill mandating that weighted funding for disadvantaged school students become a permanent fixture in the state budget.
The bill is an outgrowth of a legal settlement last year in a lawsuit over school funding. It passed the Senate on a unanimous vote Thursday and now goes to the House.
The bill codifies the so-called Opportunity Funding that Democratic Gov. John Carney’s administration first proposed a couple of years ago after the lawsuit was filed. The funding is aimed at improving academic performance of low-income students, students whose first language is not English, and students with disabilities.
Carney announced in October that the state had reached a settlement in a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and Community Legal Aid Society that requires him to seek significantly higher funding from the legislature for disadvantaged students. They are defined as children from low-income families, those with disabilities and children whose first language is not English.
Among other things, Carney must propose budgets for next year and the following year that include at least $35 million for disadvantaged students. He is required to seek appropriations of at least $50 million for the 2023-2024 school year and $60 million for the 2024-2025 school year.
He also was required to propose legislation to make funding for disadvantaged students a permanent fixture in the state budget.
The bill approved by the Senate makes the funding permanent and calls for at least $60 million in annual expenditures after fiscal 2025.
Officials said funding for the current year would amount to $310.75 for each low-income student in Delaware and $517.75 for each “English language learner.” The per-pupil funding is expected to increase to about $1,000 over the next few years.
“I think this is way overdue,” said Senate president pro tem David Sokola, D-Newark, who chaired the Senate Education Committee for several years and remains a member of the panel.
Meanwhile, attorneys for the ACLU and CLASI have reached settlements with two of Delaware’s three counties, who were also named as defendants in the lawsuit. Officials in New Castle and Kent counties have agreed in those settlements to conduct property reassessments. Officials in Sussex County are currently seeking bids from companies able to conduct a countywide reassessment.
Property taxes are a key funding component for school districts, but state law doesn’t require reassessments on any particular schedule. Kent County in central Delaware last reassessed property values in 1987, while northern New Castle County’s current assessment dates to 1983. Sussex County, home to million-dollar beach homes in southern Delaware, last reassessed properties in 1974.
The lawsuit alleged that Delaware was failing to provide adequate educational opportunities for disadvantaged students and that school property tax collections based on outdated assessments were partially to blame for the lack of funding.
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