{"id":1554,"date":"2023-04-29T09:19:54","date_gmt":"2023-04-29T13:19:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/?p=1554"},"modified":"2023-04-29T09:19:57","modified_gmt":"2023-04-29T13:19:57","slug":"indiana-gop-budget-textbook-fees-eliminated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/2023\/04\/29\/indiana-gop-budget-textbook-fees-eliminated\/","title":{"rendered":"Indiana GOP budget:\u00a0Textbook fees eliminated"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>By TOM DAVIES\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Associated Press<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>INDIANAPOLIS (AP) \u2014 Indiana&#8217;s new state budget will expand eligibility for its private school voucher program to higher earners and speed up planned income tax rate cuts under a deal announced Wednesday by Republican legislative leaders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Senate Republicans initially resisted both House-backed moves. But they were included in the budget agreement after an updated tax revenue report released last week showed the state is projected to collect about $1.5 billion, or 2.5% more than previously expected, through July 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Republican plan would leave about $650 million in additional money for traditional public schools and taxpayer-supported charter schools over the next two years. Democrats called that inadequate at a time when the state will have more than $2.5 billion in cash reserves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The deal includes money to fill a request from Holcomb to eliminate school material and textbook rental fees charged to families \u2014 a step estimated to cost about $120 million a year. Indiana is among a handful of states still allowing textbook fees, which Democrats and many education advocates have long criticized as an unfair extra cost to families.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By TOM DAVIES\u00a0 Associated Press INDIANAPOLIS (AP) \u2014 Indiana&#8217;s new state budget will expand eligibility for its private<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":320,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[21],"class_list":["post-1554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wzbd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/photoless-header-template-news.jpg?fit=252%2C144&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1554"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1554\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}