 It was a $100 million increase, 1.7% increase over the 2016-17 state education appropriation.Additionally, the state continued to fund its Ready to Learn grants at $250 million and Special Education funding received a $25 million increase to $1.121 billion.The state also paid $529,5 million to the school employee social security fund and another $2.304 billion to the teacher's pension fund, an increase of 7.6% over the state's 2016-17 payment.