The Iowa Legislature has approved the amount of education funding for the next fiscal year, increasing the funding from 2019 by 2.3% or approximately $99 million and totaling nearly $3.4 billion. State Senator Julian Garrett tells KNIA News the legislature was comfortable with the increase, though it was not as much as others had proposed, because they wanted to be as careful as possible to not appropriate money then have to scale it back if the projections are wrong.

“I think a lot of the schools appreciate the fact that when we tell them we are going to provide a certain amount of funding, they get it. They don’t have to worry about having the rug being pulled out from under them later on. I’ve heard from several superintendents that they would rather have funding they could count on, even if it was not as much as they would have wanted, than have it changed later on.”

Governor Kim Reynolds requested a 2.5% increase in education funding, while Democrats in the legislature proposed a 3% increase.