06/12/2025 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 06/12/2025 16:37
Although K-12 advocates have had to fight hard in recent years for gains to the State School Fund, all things considered, the years since the Student Success Act passed in 2019 have been relatively flush. With a down June Economic and Revenue Forecast, this year's budgeting process feels a bit like the early- to mid-2010s: Things are tight across all program areas.
The good news is that the funding examinations K-12 advocates put in motion years ago finally paid off with an updated current service level calculation for the State School Fund, which came in at $11.36 billion. That's over $500 million more than it would have been under the previous model. Senate Bill 5516, the State School Fund budget, is making its way through the final stages of the legislative process.
We had to wait a bit longer to see the Oregon Department of Education budget and its various grant programs, including the Student Success Act's K-12 funding "buckets." Senate Bill 5515 moved out of the Joint Ways and Means Education Subcommittee on Wednesday, June 11, with amendments that were finalized the day of the hearing. This is an indication that advocacy efforts paid off. Further proof is in the budget itself.
To be clear, the budget includes cuts, but the drop in corporate activity tax revenue and the need to hold some funds in reserve made that unavoidable. On the whole, we came out pretty OK. There is a roughly $200 million reduction across all of ODE, a 3.6% reduction in the agency budget.
Here are some of the noteworthy changes:
SB 5515 now moves to the full Ways and Means Committee.
It is important to note we also saw the Legislature grant $167 million to school districts and education service districts to buy down the 2025-27 Public Employment Retirement System rates by 1.68 percentage points.
Things, of course, could always be better. But given the worst-case scenario we had been bracing for since the forecast came out in May, this is about as good a position as we could have ever hoped to be in.
We didn't avoid all cuts, but the Legislature heeded our urging and prioritized protecting grants and budgets that go directly into district classrooms.
- Adrienne Anderson
OSBA Government Relations Counsel