Issue Brief: E-12 education funding
The state’s budget problems have hit schools and students hard in recent years. Funding has not kept up with needs; as a result, class sizes are increasing, education programs are being cut and students are losing learning opportunities.
The recent political debate over education funding ignores these growing problems while lawmakers argue over numbers.
For example, a claimed $488 average increase in per-pupil funding includes enrollment growth and referendum levies that local voters passed to make up for insufficient state funding. Similarly, a $50 per pupil increase from the Legislature each year of the biennium was meant to help school districts pay borrowing costs they incurred because the Legislature further “shifted” school aid payments to balance the state budget.
While this additional funding is helpful, it doesn’t make up the ground lost to inflation over the past eight years.
Between 2003 and 2011, the general education formula allowance increased by 11.4 percent, while inflation increased by 20.6 percent using the Consumer Price Index, or 35.1 percent using the more appropriate Implicit Price Deflator for State and Local Government Purchases.
That means schools have lost $352 to $808 per pupil in purchasing power since 2003.
Meanwhile, the Legislature has continued to borrow from school districts to balance the state’s books: more than $2.7 billion in accounting shifts, $423 million in loans to avert a state cash-flow crisis in 2010, and about $700 million in unfunded special education costs that districts are forced to pay from their general funds.
Education Minnesota believes:
- Lawmakers must keep K-12 funding at least at the level required under current law to meet statutory requirements and to provide for growth in the student population.
- Funding for schools should be equitable, sustainable, predictable and sufficient, so all students have access to quality programs, revenue sources are stable enough to withstand economic downturns, and school districts can plan their revenues and expenditures.
- It is time to overhaul our current state education funding methods to ensure opportunities for all students and a public school system of which Minnesota can be proud.
For more information, contact:
Jan Alswager, chief lobbyist, 651-292-4890, jan.alswager@edmn.org
Jodee Buhr, lobbyist, 651-292-4830, jodee.buhr@edmn.org
January 19, 2012