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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowGov. Mike Pence plans on signing the new state budget plan during a ceremony at a central Indiana elementary school.
The new two-year state spending plan was approved by the General Assembly last week. Slightly more than half of the $31 billion budget goes toward K-12 education, with funding going up 2.3 percent each year.
Pence is scheduled to sign the budget bill Thursday afternoon at Perry-Worth Elementary School in Lebanon.
A key push by Republicans in the spending plan was to shift money from many shrinking urban and rural school districts to those in growing suburban communities.
The effort is expected to shrink the sizable gap in per-child funding between growing and shrinking school districts.
Democrats calculate about a third of Indiana's nearly 300 school districts will see funding cuts under the changes and predict hundreds of teacher layoffs around the state.
Suburban districts say the additional funding will help them address resource shortages and and allow them to hire more staff to reduce high student-teacher ratios.
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