The public school budget is divided into seven budget bills: Administrators, Teachers, Operations, Childrens Programs, Facilities, and Central Services. A bipartisan group of seven JFAC members proposed the motion for the first division, Administrators, and it passed unanimously, on a 20-0 vote. That division includes a 3 percent pay increase for administrators, and a $326,000 increase in funding for strategic planning and training, a program recommended by the governor’s education improvement task force. Gov. Butch Otter recommended a $726,000 increase; the JFAC motion cuts the increase in half. “It’s not at the rate the governor had, but it’s more than last year,” said Sen. Roy Lacey, D-Pocatello, one of the seven sponsors. “This is a good budget. I think it’s a very fair budget.”

The other sponsors are Reps. Wendy Horman, Steven Miller, Phylis King and John Gannon, and Sens. Dean Mortimer and Steven Thayn.

The seven sponsors are joining together in motions for six of the seven divisions; on one of the divisions – for operations – King and Gannon are proposing their own, larger motion, for a bigger increase in discretionary funding to school districts.

Overall, the seven motions from the group add up to a 7.4 percent increase in state funding for schools next year, a $101.2 million increase, equal to Gov. Butch Otter’s recommendation. The King-Gannon plan adds up to a 9.3 percent increase in general funds, $121.8 million.