Education funding continues to be a main topic of discussion among Iowa lawmakers.

District 24 Senator Jerry Behn says last week, the Senate Education Committee passed a four percent state supplemental aid increase for the upcoming school year. He voted no on the measure in committee.

“I really just thought that we don’t even have that we don’t even have this year’s set. Since it is a percentage and since that means it’s going to be a percentage of the number we set (and) since we don’t even have that number set, I thought it would be appropriate to set this year’s first.”

In the 1993-94 fiscal year, lawmakers spent $1.3 billion on education, which was 37 percent of the state’s budget, with an average teacher’s salary of $30,000, which was 32nd in the country. In the 2013-14 fiscal year, $2.7 billion was spent on education, which was 41.9 percent of the budget with an average teacher’s salary of $52,000, which was 25th in the country. Student enrollment also declined during that time period from 497,000 to 478,000 and the supplemental state aid per pupil increased from $3,000 to $6,400.

“The facts show that we’ve continued to make an increased investment in our state’s greatest resources, our young kids through the educational system, we’ve got to be careful we don’t just get trapped in a dollars game.”

Behn was unsure about a percentage that he would be comfortable with until they have a better idea of what the mid-March Revenue Estimating Conference numbers reveal about the anticipated revenues for next fiscal year.