A House bill that would substantially boost school funding has cleared two committees and could be headed for a final vote, but questions remain over how the state would pay for it.

Minority-caucus Republicans said the funding bill wasn’t worth discussing in committee because the majority hasn’t said how to pay for it.

A key House panel unexpectedly advanced a major rewrite of Alaska’s per-student funding formula for public schools on Thursday. Without objection, the House Finance Committee advanced House Bill 69 to a vote of the full House without discussing amendments or hearing public testimony.

With one member out battling an illness, the majority could not pass the bill out of the Education Committee along caucus lines. They did so with a floor vote instead.