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April 21, 2005
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| Rep. Leroy Stumpf says education is Senate Democrats' top priority, and they will fund it without accounting gimmicks or a hike in local property taxes. (MPR Photo/Laura McCallum) |
St. Paul, Minn. — K-12 budget bills moving through the House and Senate have similar bottom lines. Each would spend about $12.6 billion on public schools over the next two years, and each would increase the basic per-pupil funding formula. But the major similarities stop there. The Senate bill would increase the formula 5 percent next year, and 4 percent the following year.
The House increase is 3 percent in each of the next two years. The sponsor of the Senate K-12 bill, DFLer Leroy Stumpf of Plummer, says the heftier hike is warranted, because districts faced flat state funding the last two years.
"All we heard was that they were cutting programs and laying off staff and teachers, and they were pleading - basically pleading - for some help from the state," Stumpf said.
Stumpf says education is Senate Democrats' top priority, and they will fund it without accounting gimmicks or a hike in local property taxes. Their bill doesn't give school districts any new authority to increase local levies without voter approval, as Gov. Pawlenty is recommending.
But Senate DFLers haven't said how they'll pay for the $760 million in new K-12 spending. That omission prompted complaints from several Republicans, including Sen. David Hann of Eden Prairie.
"If it's just sort of a wish list of what we'd like to do, I think we could all say 'well, gee, we'd like to spend more money,' and if there's no consideration given to the sources of the funding then why wouldn't we want to say, 'well, let's put 10 and 10 on the table and see what happens?'" he said.
Stumpf responded that the Senate DFL plan includes reasonable parameters for increases in education and other areas of the state budget. Senate DFL leaders say their plan to pay for the new spending will take shape in the next couple of weeks.
Several DFL senators, including Stumpf, have introduced a bill to increase income tax rates for upper-income Minnesotans that were cut in 1999 and 2001.
House Republicans have sided with the governor on his no-new-taxes stance, and say they'll boost education funding without a statewide tax increase.
Republican Barb Sykora of Excelsior, who chairs the Education Finance Committee, says her bill would give public schools a significant increase.
"We're at $723 million in new dollars for districts. That is one of the largest amounts ever put out there for schools. I think it's about the third highest of anything we've ever done over the years so it's pretty darn good actually," she says.
The House Education Finance Committee approved Sykora's bill on a party-line vote of 8-to-6. Democrats who voted against the bill say some of the increased spending would come from local property taxes and payment shifts. They also criticized the bill for removing automatic increases for districts based on their percentage of students in poverty.
DFL Rep. Connie Bernardy of Fridley says the bill doesn't do enough for schools.
"We haven't even filled the hole yet to help our schools from dismantling their quality programs. I kind of see this bill as a beehive; there's some honey in it, but our students are still going to get stung," according to Bernardy.
Bernardy and other House Democrats say they prefer the Senate K-12 bill, because it doesn't include payment shifts or property tax increases. Both the House and Senate bills would spend more than Gov. Pawlenty's education proposal. And while Senate Democrats have yet to say how they'll pay for their plan, the House budget also contains a question mark.
If the House passes a gambling bill, the K-12 budget wouldn't have to delay a portion of school payments. But the fate of gambling proposals is uncertain.
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