The Democrats' attempt to add $10 million to discretionary funds for school districts next year, tapping an unused balance in a school facilities fund, has failed on a 6-14 vote, with GOP Sens. Joyce Broadsword, R-Sagle, and Mitch Toryanski, R-Boise, joining the four Democrats on JFAC in supporting it. The original motion, without that money, then passed on a reverse vote of 14-6.

Broadsword said she doesn't usually differ so much with her fellow GOP committee members. But, she said, "I think that our school districts have been handed a number of new unfunded mandates, and while I don't like to dip into the school facility funds, because the sponsor has allowed for a payback of that money, I'm going to support the motion." Nevertheless, it failed. The operations budget includes repeating this year's move of shifting a slew of the usual line items in the school budget into discretionary funds, from $7.5 million in transportation funds to $8.3 million from the safe and drug-free schools program. Even so, discretionary funds per support unit, or classroom, would be down significantly next year.

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