| Let school boards levy without vote of people | 
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| Wednesday, 21 October 2009 | |
| by Don Heinzman On Tuesday, Nov. 3, 45 school districts will go out tin cup in hand, asking for property tax dollars for their underfunded school programs involving thousands of students. Among them are Anoka-Hennepin, North Branch, Cambridge-Isanti, Spring Lake Park and St. Francis, who either are asking for renewal of or new property tax levies. During this off-year election, opponents will have the upper hand, unless the districts wage an all-out campaign to get out the vote over complicated financial issues. Cut to the chase and you’ll discover that the Minnesota Legislature and its governor chose to give schools zero increase in state general funds this year and next year. During this tough economic time, asking voters to increase their taxes is difficult, but it shouldn’t have to be this way. School districts received zero increases in state foundation aid in four of the first 10 years of this century. Other years, they received increases ranging from 2.6 percent in 2001-02 and 2002-03 to 4.2 percent in 2000-01. No wonder school districts have slashed budgets. School boards are powerless to raise funds, with one exception - ask the taxpayers to approve a supplemental property tax levy. Unlike townships, villages, counties and the state, school boards cannot increase taxes to balance the budget without a voter referendum. In 1987, districts began to pass operating levies mainly to fund extracurricular and co-curricular activities. Now those levies finance basic needs and today 92 percent of districts have operating levies. Some like North Branch don’t have such a levy. And so for the last several years, they’ve cut millions of dollars from their budgets, increased class sizes, made more kids walk to school and upped the fees to be in extracurricular activities. Due to all the emphasis on testing on the basic subjects, all the subjects, particularly the arts, have taken a beating. Meanwhile, mandated expenditures for special education continue to take big bites out of the local general fund, because state and federal governments refuse to fulfill their promised funding. The state’s constitution says it is the duty of the Legislature to establish a general and uniform system of public schools. The Legislature shall make such provisions by taxation or otherwise to secure a thorough and efficient system of public schools throughout the state. When the state turns its back on education funding, it’s time for the Legislature to pass a law and let school boards levy needed funds without a vote of the people – just like townships, villages, cities, counties and the state. Let the voters vote school board members out or in, based on their decisions to tax the people – just like boards and councils in other public policy-making bodies. Plan to vote and pay attention to the referendums in your districts. Students need all the help they can get to compete in this global society with students from foreign countries where there are no excess levy referendums. Editor’s note: Don Heinzman is editorial writer for ECM Publishers Inc. |
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