Sec. 1. 20-A MRSA §15602, sub-§11, as enacted by PL 1997, c. 469, §1, is amended to read:

11. State share of debt service costs for school construction; separate budget line item; separate appropriation. It is the intent of the Legislature that the state share of the school construction debt service costs, as biennially established by the Legislature pursuant to the debt service limits authorized in section 15905, must be supported by General Fund appropriations beginning in fiscal year 1999-2000. The Legislature shall annually report the aggregate amount of the state share of the allocation for debt service costs under section 15611 as a separate line item and program account in the budget submitted to the Legislature for consideration.__The Legislature shall annually appropriate an amount to capitalize the state share of debt service costs under section 15611, subsection 2 that is separate from the appropriation for general purpose aid for local schools.

Sec. 2. 20-A MRSA §15652, sub-§2, as enacted by PL 1995, c. 368, Pt. Z, §1 and affected by §2, is amended to read:

2. Income weight. "Income weight" means a value between zero and one that is used to adjust a municipality's ratio of local median household income to the statewide median household income. The income weight plus the property weight, as defined in subsection 7, must equal one. Beginning in fiscal year 1999-00, the income weight must be the median household income data reported in the United States Census data that was used for the statewide component and for the local municipality component in fiscal year 1997-98.__The department shall use the fiscal year 1997-98 median household income data for each fiscal year until fiscal year 2001-02 when the department shall use the median household income data reported in the United States Census for 2000 for each fiscal year until fiscal year 2011-12 when the department shall use data for the United States Census for 2010.

Sec. 3. 20-A MRSA §15652, sub-§4, as amended by PL 1997, c. 643, Pt. D, §3, is further amended to read:

4. Normalized regional cost adjustment; public education price index. "Normalized regional cost adjustment" means a factor that is used to adjust a median household income value up or down to reflect variations in regional costs. The department shall contract for the acquisition of annual normalized regional cost adjustment data, based on the National Chamber of Commerce model, except as follows. Beginning in fiscal year 1998-99, the weight of the housing component of the market basket is 14%,