Public schools; Standards of Quality funding calculations.

Public school funding; certain calculations.Places several parameters on Standards of Quality funding calculationsperformed by the Department of Education, including (i) requiringthe Department, when calculating the cost of salaries under the Standardsof Quality funding formula, to include facilities staff and transportationstaff salaries in the calculation of any cost of competing adjustmentto salaries for instructional and support positions that is providedas part of the state share of basic aid pursuant to the general appropriationact; (ii) requiring the Department, when estimating the cost of anycompensation supplement for instructional and support positions underthe Standards of Quality funding formula, to include and estimatethe cost of such a compensation supplement for facilities staff;(iii) prohibiting the Department from applying any cap on inflationrate adjustments to non-personal cost categories during the biennialprocess of rebenchmarking the direct aid to public education budget;and (iv) requiring the Department to utilize a three-year averageof the most recently available data to calculate the composite indexof local ability-to-pay for each school division. This bill was incorporated into SB 105.