Here is a quick overview of some of the bill’s more substantial provisions:

Inflation-adjusted funding: We wrote about this last week. The law guarantees every school district at least $4,765 per weighted student. (Weighted student count gives extra money for special education students and students in regions with higher costs to educate.)

That basic allotment, however, is indexed to the average statewide property value per student. What does this mean?

The average per-student budget would go up by the same amount. Generally, property tax appraisals appreciate faster than inflation, so this provision will probably result in more money to school districts. The catch is, it expires in 2013, when the formula reverts to the flat $4,765 amount.

Normally, property appraisals rise faster than the state estimates in the budget, meaning the state has to send less money to school districts to meet its obligation. A state surplus usually results from this action. The inflation-adjuster in HB 3646 would eliminate that surplus, however, as school funding – and the state’s obligation — would rise at the same rate as appraisals.

One can argue that an inflation-adjuster has some advantages. Under the current system (which doesn’t have such an adjustment), property taxpayers pay more and more when appraisals rise but don’t see any of that money in their local schools, because the state cuts back its aid to compensate. Further, unlike cities and counties, a school district cannot cut its rate when appraisals rise without a proportionate drop in revenue.

But the inflation adjuster in HB 3646 only raises spending and does so by an amount (property tax appraisals) that exceeds most other forms of inflation. It does not provide any tax relief from rising appraisals (which could easily be done by lowering a number called the State Compression Percentage that was created in 2006 to push tax rates down). And it virtually guarantees that state budgets will be tighter because the state budget no longer would benefit from rising property values.

It also sets the stage for a potentially nasty confrontation in the 2013 session over whether to let the inflation-adjuster expire.

Increase in school district budgets. The bill guarantees all school districts a minimum of $120 per weighted student over what they would have gotten from the current formulas.

Teacher pay raise. HB 3646 guarantees every teacher a minimum of an $800 annual raise over what each would have gotten without the bill. (This raised amount, however, could include a district’s increased Social Security costs.)

Elimination of "target revenue" system: With the exception of the $120 guarantee mentioned above, the school eliminates the "target revenue" system adopted by the Legislature in the 2006 school finance bill. This temporary system froze the school finance formulas on what property values looked like when the bill was passed. Over time, the target revenue system hurt school equity because property values change over time. HB 3646 updates the property values used by the state for school finance purposes, thus increasing equity.

Interim study of weights and allotments: The Legislature is about to embark on yet another interim study on the public school finance system. This time the Legislature has created an interim committee on weights, allotments, and adjustments. The committee will consist of 15 members – four senators appointed by the Lieutenant Governor, four House members appointed by the Speaker, the Commissioner of Education, three school employees, and three representatives of the business community. The Speaker, Lieutenant Governor, and Governor each get to appoint one school employee and business community member for the committee.

Several of the weights and allotments have not been reviewed in decades. It’s been almost 20 years since the last update of either the transportation or cost of education index. (The cost of education index is supposed to reimburse school districts for regional cost variations beyond the control of the district, but the index has not been updated in decades, and doing so could provoke an urban-rural fight, since any update would increase school funding for urban districts.)

Another weight that will get careful examination is that which is afforded to bilingual students. Latino advocacy groups want to increase it, but any increase in that weight will be expensive due to the growing population of students it covers.

Roll-forward of Existing Debt Allotment: The existing debt allotment is a tax cut plan that provides state aid for poorer school districts to help them pay for their buildings. It was first passed in 1999 but is usually "rolled forward" every biennium to cover debt issued in the prior two years. It is based on property wealth, so poorer school districts get more aid.

The EDA acts like a tax cut, because school district Interest and Sinking tax rates are limited by law to the rate necessary to pay off bonded debt. Therefore, when the state picks up school district debt, the Interest and Sinking rate goes down.

This bill creates a permanent roll-forward of the EDA program, meaning that debt from recently constructed buildings would enter the program automatically.

Study on dual-credit courses: HB 3646 directs the commissioners of education and higher education to conduct a study on dual-credit, whereby high school students take college courses and get credit for both.

Robin Hood relief: The bill does provide more funding to all school districts, including those subject to recapture (wealth sharing). The bill ties "property wealthy" and "poor" districts together, allowing these wealthy districts to keep as much revenue as the property-poor school districts do for their basic programs. School districts subject to recapture can now benefit from the mid-sized allotment.

The Legislature has passed a school finance bill and allocated large amounts of cash to school districts. And it has created interim studies to look at the system further.

But there’s a larger issue the bill avoids – what is the appropriate level of funding for schools? The bill implies – through its inflation-adjuster — that funding needs increasing. But questions like what is the best way to account for inflation, how much extra money do special-needs kids need, are left for the interim study the bill creates.

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