DFL education bill is less than Pawlenty proposed

03/23/2007

The Senate measure would increase school spending by $478 million. The governor wants $700 million.


By Norman Draper,
Star Tribune
Last update: March 21, 2007


The Minnesota Senate switched roles as big spenders with Gov. Tim Pawlenty on Wednesday by presenting an education budget bill that would provide less for schools than the governor's plan would.

The bill, introduced by the DFL-dominated Senate and passed by the E-12 Education Budget Division, allocates $498 million more over the next two years for early-childhood education and K-12 schools. Pawlenty, a Republican, has proposed more than $700 million in new spending for schools.

DFLers said they were only living within their means.

"Obviously, we were restricted by the amount of dollars," said LeRoy Stumpf, DFL-Plummer, chairman of the division.

But division Republicans figured the budget plan to be a low-ball ploy aimed at raising income taxes.

"That, to me, is the shoe that hasn't dropped yet," said Sen. David Hann, R-Eden Prairie. He said he thinks the DFLers will plead poverty by presenting the bare-bones education budget, then propose a tax increase that they could then use to bump up funding for schools.

Pawlenty spokesman Brian McClung called the Senate plan "underwhelming, at best."

While the Senate education budget is smaller than Pawlenty's, the governor's education budget is, in part, one-time money for various initiatives rather than the continuing funding provided in the Senate bill, Stumpf said.

The Senate bill proposes to pay a much bigger chunk of school special education costs. Educators have complained for years that such costs, incurred to educate students with disabilities or other special learning needs, are draining their resources because school districts are not adequately reimbursed for them by the state and federal governments.

Also included in the bill is about $110 million in property-tax relief, which would come from combining three school district tax levies into one, then reducing that and limiting it to prevent it from rising with property values.

The bill also attempts to put the brakes on two major school reforms: charter schools and Pawlenty's Q-Comp program, which is designed to help districts give teachers merit pay increases. A provision of the bill would limit the number of charter schools to 150 (there are 133 now) and then study the role of charter schools as a part of public education. Charter proponents called an afternoon news conference to oppose the bill.

"This would send a very powerful message that new ideas are not wanted," said Joe Nathan, director of the University of Minnesota's Center for School Change. "Secondly, it would say to the nation that Minnesota, which pioneered charter schools, is suddenly backing away."

The bill redirects $62 million earmarked for the Q-Comp program to other educational purposes.

As for the big allocation for special education, Stumpf said educators statewide have been citing that as their biggest budget headache. The bill, he said, would increase the proportion of schools' special education costs paid by the state from less than 50 percent to 68 percent. That extra money would then unlock funds for schools to use for other purposes.

"This legislation frees up general-fund dollars in the districts so they can provide opportunities in other areas of education," Stumpf said. "It frees up a lot of revenue school districts have been taking out of their general fund [that they were using] for things like class size reduction and programs."