In the Senate Education Committee's discussion, Sen. Chuck Winder, R-Boise, said, "I think there are hopefully some things that we've learned from the public, from the teaching community, that could come out of this in a positive way. But I also think as a committee that we need to provide some policy direction of where we're going. I think there were some good things that were in 1113, the restoring of the grid. ... I think there's some good things in the bill, and if we can resolve some of the bad things, I don't know that we'll ever totally get everybody on board ... I think we've all learned a lot. I think there is some room for compromise from where we've started. Hopefully the process can be established so that when the task force is done, the stakeholders feel like they did have some significant impact on the outcome."

Committee members are now asking representatives of stakeholder groups who are in the room what they think of relaxing the state's "use it or lose it" funding rule, with looming budget cuts. Karen Echeverria of the Idaho School Boards Association said, "We've said from the beginning the big thing for the trustees is flexibility at the local school district level to let them figure this out on their own."

Robin Nettinga of the Idaho Education Association said many school districts will try to pass supplemental levies, but not all will be able to or will even want to try. Harold Ott of the Idaho Association of School Administrators said there are concerns about meeting the constitutional requirement for uniformity in funding Idaho's schools. "I think most of the districts that I represent, certainly the rural ones, would probably want me to say, give us some more relief on the use it or lose it," he told the committee. But he said he's "divided." He said, "We want the local control. I think the only way we can make it work this year is to give the local control to the trustees and the districts." But more than half of Idaho's school districts now have supplemental levies, he said, raising additional property taxes for basic operations at the behest of their local voters; others that don't will have deeper cuts. "The more we do that, the less uniformity we have."