One state representative says he’s proud about the legislature passing the State Supplemental Aid (SSA).

Republican Phil Thompson says the bill was signed by Governor Kim Reynolds this week into law with a 2.06-percent increase in public education funding for next school year. He points out another area he advocated for was increasing transportation equity for those school districts, like Greene County, to receive additional funding.

“Those conversations in the House went well. I was able to do some modeling for different districts and see who was going to benefit from that and go to them, and kind of work my peers. We were able to go in with a strong coalition of people advocating for this transportation equity funds.”

Greene County School Board member Sam Harding worked with Thompson on pushing for an increase in transportation equity funding, due to the school district being the eighth largest geographical district in the state. Harding was thrilled to get additional transportation funding, and adds that the “little guy” got a victory at the statehouse.

“It’s the littler districts that have the money problems because we’re spread out but we also don’t have very many kids. It’s been nice that the legislature is finally seeing that a lot of the problems in the small districts are because they are spending so much on busing when they’re having to layoff a teacher to keep two bus routes or something alive. That’s a problem and I think that’s finally being addressed. It’s really exciting.”

The overall increase adds another almost $90 million in public education spending.