This week, the Iowa House passed House File 2613 to increase SSA funding by 3%. Supplemental State Aid, often called SSA, is the amount of new funding committed by the state to local school districts.
This increase amounts to $146.7 million more than Fiscal Year 2024. It would bring per pupil funding to $7,864 per student, an increase of $229 over FY 2024. This number must be agreed upon with the Senate and the Governor, who originally proposed a 2.5% increase. We feel that 3% is the right number to support our public schools.
This session, we have had many conversations about education that will affect school budgets in addition to SSA, such as raising teacher pay and funding school safety infrastructure efforts. Our current proposal allocates money to raise the minimum teacher pay to $50,000 over two years and increase educational support staff to $15/hour. With this increase in SSA funding, school districts would have additional money to raise veteran teacher salaries how they see fit.
As they always do, Democrats will say Republicans are underfunding public education. But Republicans are responsible for record-high education investments over the last decade. K-12 education funding has increased by almost a billion new dollars over the last 10 years. The last time education funding was actually cut, was when Democrats had the trifecta in 2010.
