ENROLLED
Committee Substitute
for
H. B. 2578
(By Delegates Williams, Crosier and Sumner)
[Passed April 9, 2005; in effect July 1, 2005]
AN ACT to repeal §18-2E-3e of the Code of West Virginia, 1931, as
amended; and to amend and reenact §18-9A-5a and §18-9A-5b of
said code, all relating to repealing section creating the West
Virginia Science Education Enhancement Initiative Grant
Program; increasing the ratios of professional and service
personnel to students in net enrollment; establishing the
ratios for certain school years; and making certain findings;
stating legislative intent to examine state basic foundation
program and address staffing and other needs as indicated by
examination.
Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
That §18-2E-3e of the Code of West Virginia, 1931, as amended,
be repealed; and that §18-9A-5a of said code be amended and
reenacted, all to read as follows:
ARTICLE 9A. PUBLIC SCHOOL SUPPORT.
§18-9A-5a. Ratio of foundation allowances for professional
educators and service personnel to net enrollment.
(a) The purpose of this section is to establish maximum ratios
between the numbers of professional educators and service personnel
in the counties which are funded through the public school support
plan and the net enrollment in the counties. These ratios are in
addition to the ratios provided in sections four and five of this
article. It is the intent of the Legislature to adjust these
ratios pursuant to legislative act as may be appropriate when
additional personnel are needed to perform additional duties.
(b) Beginning on the first day of July, two thousand five, and
each school year thereafter, in computing the basic foundation
allowance to a county for professional educators and the basic
foundation allowance to a county for service personnel under
sections four and five of this article, a county shall not receive
an allowance for these personnel which number per one thousand
students in net enrollment is in excess of the number of
professional educators and the number of service personnel in the
county computed as follows:
Maximum professional Maximum service
educators per 1000 personnel per 1000
students in students in
For the net enrollment
net enrollment
school High density Low density High density Low density
year
County County County County
2005-2006
74.10 74.20 43.73 44.69
2006-2007 74.20 74.40 43.85 44.89
and thereafter 74.30 74.60 43.97 45.10
(c) Every county shall use methods other than reductions in
force, such as attrition and early retirement, before implementing
their reductions in force policy to comply with the limitations of
this section.
§18-9A-5b. Foundation allowance for increasing professional and
service personnel positions.
(a) Commencing with the school year beginning on the first day
of July, two thousand five, two million five hundred thousand
dollars shall be appropriated for the purpose of increasing the
ratios of professional and service personnel per one thousand
students in net enrollment. For each of the eleven following
school years, an additional two million five hundred thousand
dollars shall be added to the appropriation for this purpose.
(b) The Legislature finds that the state basic foundation
program
initially was enacted during the regular session of the
Legislature, one thousand nine hundred seventy-one, as a seven-step
formula driven largely by student enrollment. Although it has been
amended many times over the intervening years to effect program
improvements, respond to changing enrollment patterns and
accommodate budgetary priorities,
it remains a formula driven
primarily by student enrollment. As such, the state basic
foundation program
has been credited with providing base level funding from the state which is very equitable on a per student
basis among the county school systems. However, the intervening
years also have seen substantial changes in the educational
environment, the most profound of which include the decline in
student enrollment from about four hundred four thousand students
when the state basic foundation program was created to about two
hundred seventy-eight thousand students in the two thousand five
school year, the growth of technology delivered instruction, the
advent of performance-based accountability and the accompanying
responsibility to target resources to make needed improvements.
Therefore, as it pursues the objectives set forth in subsection (a)
of this section, it is the intent of the Legislature to examine
further the state basic foundation program in context with the
changing educational environment and address the staffing and other
needs of the public schools as may be indicated through that
examination.