After two years of study and deliberation, Delaware’s Public Education Funding Commission officially voted on its recommendations to rework public school funding.
PEFC's votes reflect the first phase of its work to implement a new funding model for its schools. Key provisions from these are:
- Funding will increase to approximately $5,500 and $3,800 per pupil for low income students and multilingual learners respectively. Pupils in each of these categories currently receive under $1,000.
- Implementation of Phase 1 starts in the 2027-2028 school year
- The weighted model will eventually require reallocation of funds from wealthier to poorer districts. But to avoid an immediate drop in revenue, the PEFC recommends a "hold harmless" measure for districts during Phase 1.
- The PEFC anticipates an additional $150-200 million needed in state funding to support its "hold harmless" recommendation
- The PEFC recommends extending its existence to work on Phase 2, when it would look at additional weighted funding categories. Phase two would begin in 2029.
State Senator Laura Sturgeon (D-Woodbrook), the commission's chair, plans to introduce bills this week and next to codify PEFC’s recommendations. She expects to see the targeted funding to yield results.
"When we start to see that these targeted funds are doing what they're meant to do, then ... it'll be much more likely for the public to accept further investments in the public education system," Sturgeon said.
State Senator Eric Buckson (R-Dover South) plans to support the bills, but said the funding weights need to be flexible.
"I do recognize sitting on the Joint Finance Committee the challenges we have in future budgets that are coming up," he said. "There has to be some flexibility, and hopefully we don't have to use it."
PEFC Phase 1 recommendations would go into effect for July 2027. In addition to increasing funding for low income students and multilingual learners, it consolidates the state's current 32 funding streams for education down to three: operational, opportunity and base funding.
PEFC also voted to keep the state’s equalization formula, which levels the playing field for education funding relative to school district wealth frozen at 2009 levels. That will be revisited in Phase 2 implementation after property reassessment corrections are complete.
