Bigger education budget proposed

02/26/2005

Norman Draper, Star Tribune
February 26, 2005

Republicans and DFLers from both the House and Senate on Friday announced an education budget plan they say would pump $750 million into Minnesota schools over the next two years.

The plan would raise funding of the basic education formula by 5 percent a year. That’s a big boost over Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s proposal to raise basic school spending 2 percent a year for two years.

Now here’s the catch. It’s a big one: Nobody knows where the money’s coming from.

“This bill does not contain a funding source,” said Sen. Steve Kelley, DFL-Hopkins, the bill’s primary Senate author, at a Capitol news conference called to announce the plan. “It sets out a funding priority for the state. ... At this stage of the game we don’t know where the funding’s coming from.”

This lack of a funding mechanism prompted a derisive response from Bill Walsh, spokesman for the Minnesota Department of Education.

“It’s gutless to say you’re going to put five percent on the formula without any way to pay for it,” Walsh said. “Nobody has a plan.”

Proposal backers say funding will probably have to come from increased fees and taxes of some sort. But no one identified the specific sources.

“I know how we’re going to fund this is critically important,” Kelley said. “I think tax increases need to be in the mix.”

Pawlenty has been adamant in his refusal to raise taxes. Critics, however, say a feature of the Pawlenty school funding plan which allows school districts to raise more money from property taxes amounts to a tax increase. Pawlenty’s proposals also include a big feature not addressed in Friday’s Senate and House plan: $60 million for schools that want to experiment with new teacher pay plans.

With all the differing features in the two plans, Kelley said it’s “hard to do apples-to-apples comparisons” between them. The Pawlenty people say their proposal adds roughly $300 million to basic school funding during the next two years. Kelley’s bill, which is to be co-authored in the House of Representatives by Rep. Doug Meslow, R-White Bear Lake, adds about 2½ times that amount in the same period.

The proposal also calls for cost-of-living increases to be added again to special education funding. Kelley said that could add as much as $180 million more to the package.

But the plan does not address a funding wish of some legislators: Restoring $185 million in cuts made two years ago to such programs as summer school and early childhood education.

The absence of an identified funding source for the new education money didn’t keep bill sponsors and supporters from forwarding the proposal as an example of a new collegiality between Republicans and DFLers in their efforts to boost school funding.

‘A coalition’

“It’s a bipartisan effort,” said Rep. Dan Dorman, R-Albert Lea. “It’s a coalition of people from all over the state saying this is what we think is the right thing to do.” Dorman said he believed the amounts were “reasonable,” and “not extravagant.” Legislative backers, who appeared to outnumber the reporters covering them at the news conference, sported blue and white buttons reading: “Invest in Our Schools Now.”

Also present Friday to offer support were member groups of the Alliance for Student Achievement (ASA), an umbrella group that represents various education organizations, including associations of parents, school board members, teachers and school administrators.

“This is what we’ve been saying as a unified position all along,” said Charlie Kyte, executive director of the Minnesota Association of School Administrators. If such a proposal were to become law, Kyte said, “for most school districts the budget cutting would stop and schools would be able to run quality programs.”

ASA members have scheduled a Monday rally at the Capitol in support of public education funding. The rally is expected to draw several thousand parents, students, teachers and community leaders.

“I think this really is the pitchforks-at-the-Capitol-doors issue,” said Scott Croonquist, executive director of the Association of Metropolitan School Districts. “This is really bubbling up. The more it bubbles up, the more it’s going to force policy makers to find a way [to increase school spending].”