Lawmakers on Wednesday waived a school spending limit that would have forced schools to cut $1.4 billion from their budgets next month, amid vehement resistance from some Republicans.
Schools were nervously facing down the prospect of mass layoffs and closures if a constitutional spending cap, called the aggregate expenditure limit, wasn’t overridden by lawmakers by March 1. With just under three weeks left before that happened, lawmakers succeeded in gathering the required two-thirds majorities in each chamber to do so — despite calls from more conservative members to enact transparency measures in exchange for allowing schools to spend the money they have already been given.
