SB 681 - This act pertains to adjustments in the Outstanding Schools Act state aid formula. The act will yield a more accurate indicator of the true growth of a district's free and reduced lunch population by excluding the desegregation students from the 1997-1998 line 14a calculation. This exclusion will calibrate the artificially inflated 1997-1998 line 14 numbers so any subsequent growth in a district's free and reduced lunch population will be represented in the finance formula.

Also, the act would attempt to repair a "glitch" in the state aid formula. Currently, an unintended consequence of the formula penalizes school districts which set their levies between 2.75 and 2.93 by reducing their share of state funding. This act prescribes that no school district will receive less on line 14 (a&b) than it would if that district's levy was no greater than 2.75. In other words, school districts would not be penalized for raising levies in excess of 2.75.
DONALD THALHUBER