Students complete classwork on laptops at Denison Broadway Elementary School on January 7, 2026. (Photo by Robin Opsahl/Iowa Capital Dispatch)
The Iowa House Appropriations Committee on Monday approved a 2.25% increase in state supplemental aid for Iowa’s K-12 school systems, slightly higher than the 1.75% passed by the Iowa Senate.
Senate File 2201 advanced in House subcommittee and committee meetings on Monday. The bill establishes per-pupil funding rates for Iowa’s public K-12 schools for the next school year.
The Senate voted 28-20 last week to approve the 1.75% increase, along with a $5-per-pupil increase that would increase funding from $7,988 in fiscal year 2026 to $8,133 in fiscal year 2027.
The measure also includes a step to offset about $47.7 million to ensure that schools receiving budget guarantees will not see property tax increases next year. This is a current system that allows school districts to increase property taxes if they are unable to meet their funding obligations under the state SSA rate.
House members voted 15-8 on Monday to amend the measure to raise the SSA rate to 2.25%. Rep. Dan Gehlbach, D-Urbandale, said that ratio would result in a cost per student of $8,168, $180 more than what was allocated last fiscal year. It would preserve budget guarantees to offset the effects of the Senate proposal and extend property tax relief.
The House amendment also adds two new elements: a $1 million cap on transportation equity payments for individual school districts and an additional $14 million for paraeducator and support staff salaries.
While the House proposal would provide more funding for Iowa’s K-12 education system than the Senate proposal, Rep. Heather Matson, D-Ankeny, said the 2.25% SSA rate still isn’t enough for schools to keep pace with inflation. Matson pointed to comments from speakers at the subcommittee meeting earlier Monday, in which some advocates and educators called for more funding.
Margaret Buckton, who represents the Iowa Urban Education Network and Rural School Advocates, said the Senate’s 1.75% SSA rate is below the rate of inflation and said a good “benchmark” for funding schools would be in line with Iowa Revenue Estimates Conference projections, which show revenue is expected to grow 4.2% in fiscal 2027.
“This will be the seventh year in a row that SSA’s percentage growth has lagged behind inflation,” Buckton said. “If we don’t at least pay our employees at the rate of inflation, then they can’t afford groceries and fuel and all the other things that impact their bottom line.”
Buckton also asked lawmakers to include the $47 million set aside for schools in the budget guarantee directly toward the SSA rate. She said using the money for SSA would still reduce property taxes because it would address special education and English language learner funding deficits in addition to bringing fewer school districts into the budget security system.
Other education advocates, including the Iowa Education Association, have called for an increase of at least 5%. Melissa Peterson of ISEA told the subcommittee that in addition to concerns about program cuts — referencing the Senate discussion about the Boone Community School District ending its 100-year-old orchestra program due to declining enrollment and state funding — any new programs or initiatives pursued by the Legislature will require additional funding.
Peterson noted that legislation under consideration includes adding more alternative learning placement options for students who exhibit disruptive or violent behavior in the classroom, banning certain partnerships between schools and public libraries, and efforts to strengthen social studies, civics and math instruction, and that these bills “will require more resources, not fewer resources” to implement.
“Education professionals want to meet you where you are,” Peterson said. “They want to provide the best experience for students and the community. It will be easier to do that when we have more resources.”
When Matson asked Gelbach how House Republicans arrived at the 2.25% number, he said it was a “responsible, sustainable number and a commitment we can make to school districts.”
But Mattson said that amount is not enough to meet the needs of Iowa schools, meaning Iowa students must contend with larger class sizes, fewer courses and deteriorating facilities.
“I believe there is a saying and a point of view that is correct on many issues, but “Especially when it comes to public education in this state, you can accept anything as long as it happens gradually,” Mattson said. “I believe the legacy we leave behind with legislation like this and more than a decade of underfunding public schools is the result of a thousand cuts. I believe Iowans deserve better than the politics of scarcity they have experienced over the past decade.” “
Gelbach highlighted that the House proposal would allocate nearly $4 billion to public schools, which also receive funding from local property taxes, federal funds and the state’s Safe Vision for Advanced Education (SAVE) tax.
“This will add $105.8 million in new funding to a system experiencing declining enrollment,” he said.
The bill will next be considered by the full House of Representatives. If passed, the revised measure will return to the Iowa Senate.
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