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Schools await state budget for education

NEW ULM — Starting Tuesday, Minnesota’s legislative session will be back in full swing. Their main goal will be to set the budget for next biennium.

Governor Mark Dayton, the state House of Representatives and the state Senate have three competing proposals for how to fund schools over the next two years.

Each proposal immediately runs into contention on the enrollment-based funding formulas that dictate much state aid school districts receive.

“A student in the school system counts as an ADM — Average Daily Membership — that unit gets X amount on the base,” ISD 88 Superintendent Jeff Bertrang said.“That is how you get your money from state aid for public schools.”

The governor’s proposal is the most generous of the three, with an increase of 2 percent each year of funds-per-student.

The senate proposes an increase of 1.5 percent while the house suggests 1.25 percent. Bertrang said he suspects the final result will be somewhere in the middle.

However, New Ulm Public Schools requires a minimum increase of 2 percent each year to maintain status quo in the face of rising costs, Bertrang said.

If the school’s budget cannot make up the difference between costs and lower state aid the district would have to consider cutting personnel or programming, Bertrang said.

Other major pieces of the governor’s proposal includes increased funding for teacher pensions, special education and voluntary pre-K. Not including pre-K it would total $1,136,466 of new funds to ISD 88.

In contrast, the House and Senate proposals would add $572,852 and $654,837 in new state aid respectively.

The Teachers’ Retirement Association (TRA) is weighing a suggestion to increase pension investments from 7.5 percent to 8 percent, an increase covered only by the governor’s proposal.

Under the House and Senate proposals, District 88 would pick up the difference, Bertrang said.

Dayton’s proposal also would add $61,000 in 2017-18 and $67,000 in the following year, an increase not reflected in legislative proposals.

Funding for the existing voluntary pre-K program would increase under the governor’s proposal. According to a press release from the governor’s office, Dayton would like to see funding for pre-K increased to fund programs at all school districts who applied.

New Ulm would see $806,713 in additional funds under Dayton’s proposal. Neither legislative proposal include money for the program.

District 88 applied for pre-K funding last year but did not get approved. However, the increased funding likely would not aid the district all that much, Bertrang said.

“Some of these proposals do not help us. They don’t hinder us but don’t help us,” Bertrang said. “It is categorical money, we call it — specialized stuff. Just put it on the formula, let us all decide how to best use it and then we can all move forward.”

New Ulm, like much of out-state Minnesota, would probably not increase in size because it lacks the available teachers. If the district cannot recruit the teachers needed for the program then the school does not see the funds.

“The voluntary pre-k program is his (Dayton’s) big, pet project but it is not for us here in outstate Minnesota, because we do not have the teachers with that license,” Bertrang said. “We do not have room for everybody for that so that is money that is not going to help us out here for all of our programs.”

The issue that would likely impact smaller districts even more, as they do not have as many resources as ISD 88 to fund their own pre-K.

Along with the increased special education, pension and formula-based funding, District 88 would like to see the state leave current reporting requirements alone, Bertrang said.

An example, Bertrang said, was the World’s Best Workforce, which has grown consistently since its introduction in 2013 in the amount of information reported in it.

“If I were to have a vote and say what New Ulm’s real priority is for school funding and the bills this year, as I told our senator and legislative representative, is no more new requirements,” Bertrang said. “Let us focus on what you already gave us so we can figure them all out because if you change them every year we cannot get ahead.”

Bertrang likened the changes to a constantly moving the target.

“Give us three years to get it all figured out with the right reporting, the right people, the right places and then we can look at the data and see if it is working,” he said.

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