Gov. Mike Pence announced his plans for the state’s budget Thursday. The education funding is planned to be distributed between various grants ?administered by the state.
“This is an education budget,” Pence said in a press release. “It puts Hoosiers first, continues Indiana on a pathway to prosperity, and funds our priority of expanding educational opportunities for all our kids, from pre-K and K-12 to higher education and into the adult workforce.”
Many of the programs are Republican-supported or created under Pence.
The most funded program is the Teacher Performance Grant, which will receive $63 million in the next two years. Schools that earned certain Indiana Statewide Testing for Educational Progress Plus assessment scores or had increased graduation rates qualified for the grant. The first distribution of these awards was done last month.
Charter schools will also receive an increase grant of $1,500 per student. The school of choice’s scholarship organization receives a maximum $12.5 million tax credit.
Pence’s new pre-K pilot program will receive $20 million throughout the next two years. The program awards grants to 4-year-old children who need financial assistance to attend school prior to kindergarten. Pence recently rejected federal funding for pre-school programs.
The entire budget is an increase of 1.34 percent. According to the press release, this number is below the rate of inflation, which is 2.06 percent over 10 years.
The budget did not leave any debt, according to the release.
Pence said the budget he proposed was honestly balanced.
Emily Ernsberger
