The Senate Appropriations - Education and Environment Division convened on April 2, 2025, to discuss significant changes to the funding structure for K-12 transportation in North Dakota. The proposed bill aims to revise the current grant format, maintaining a separate funding bucket while altering the methodology for distributing transportation funds to schools.

The meeting highlighted the findings from a transportation study conducted by the University of North Dakota, which informed the development of a new funding formula. This formula, presented to the interim school funding task force and subsequently refined, was brought to the Transportation Committee for further consideration.

Key changes in the proposed formula include the removal of student riders from the calculation, which has been criticized for its potential inaccuracies. Instead, the new formula will focus on bus run miles and introduce two new multiplying factors: one based on the square mileage of the school district and another tailored for larger districts, considering only buildings that house classes.

Additionally, the bill ties transportation funding to the weighted student average in the funding formula, ensuring that as enrollment changes, transportation dollars will adjust accordingly. This mechanism aims to eliminate the need for separate inflation adjustments, streamlining the funding process.

The discussions underscored the importance of these changes for both rural and urban school districts, with the new formula designed to better reflect the unique transportation needs of each district. The committee's deliberations will continue as they work towards finalizing the bill and its implications for North Dakota's educational transportation funding.