By Mark Sommerhauser
September 15, 2011
SARTELL — DFL legislators and area teachers are pushing back against a campaign by some Republican lawmakers to dissuade local school officials from putting levy referendums before voters.
The pushback came Wednesday afternoon at a roundtable discussion at the Sartell-St. Stephen schools district office.
A trio of DFL legislators — Reps. Larry Hosch of St. Joseph, John Ward of Brainerd and Jim Davnie of Minneapolis — scheduled the event.
Sartell-St. Stephen is among an estimated one in three Minnesota school districts expected to have a levy election this fall.
Meanwhile, the top House Republican on education finance, Rep. Pat Garofalo of Farmington and Mazeppa Rep. Steve Drazkowski are speaking out against school-district officials who are bringing those local referendums forward.
Schools got a boost in state funding in the new state budget adopted in July. So Garofalo and Drazkowski say districts shouldn’t be seeking additional funding from local taxpayers.
But the DFL lawmakers at Wednesday’s event said many districts having levy referendums are only trying to maintain their operations and facilities afters years of cuts.
Sartell teachers also bristled at what they described as an effort by some politicians to label school districts as being flush with cash.
Daniel McLean teaches fourth grade at Oak Ridge Elementary School in Sartell. McLean said he’s frustrated by Garofalo’s comments.
“These legislators need to know the needs of those particular districts before making a blanket statement,” McLean said. “Just like any entity that’s being asked to do more and more, you need more resources.”
Sartell-St. Stephen will have two questions on the ballot this fall. The first would replace an operations levy that’s set to expire with a new, increased levy, while the other would authorize the district to borrow for maintenance of facilities and technology upgrades.
Sartell-St. Stephen Superintendent Joseph Hill acknowledged it may be tough to sell voters on the levy question. Hill said the levy would allow the district to avert cuts to its operations budget.
“Our community highly values education,” Hill said. But the operations levy “will be an absolute stretch in our community.”
Other school districts expected to have levy elections this fall include Sauk Rapids-Rice, Rocori, Foley, Royalton and Upsala.
Davnie said lawmakers speaking out against local school referendums are ignoring what state policymakers have done to Minnesota schools in the last decade.
State funding for education has fallen far off the pace of inflation, he said, dropping Minnesota’s ranking among the 50 states in per-capita schools funding. That’s forced Minnesota schools to cut deeply in recent years, and many districts simply can’t cut further, Davnie said.
“Let the local folks decide these levy questions,” Davnie said.
Not all legislators are taking sides in this debate.
Two Central Minnesota lawmakers who represent areas with school districts that will have referendums on the ballot are Reps. Tim O’Driscoll, R-Sartell, and Mike LeMieur, R-Little Falls.
O’Driscoll and LeMieur told the Times earlier this week that they’ll leave it up to voters to decide on the referendums.
“We are not opposing or attacking local school district decisions on whether to seek new levies,” Jodi Boyne, spokeswoman for the House GOP caucus, said in a statement. “We simply believe it is OK ask questions on how dollars are being spent. Taxpayers have a right to know where the first increase is being spent before being asked to approve a second increase.”