Association of Metropolitan School Districts Update
June 29, 2011
Court Ruling
I will be participating in a conference call tomorrow morning with MDE staff and hope to clarify some questions related to Judge Gearin’s ruling. Some of the questions include:
- Which funding streams will continue? The ruling seems to indicate that open and standing appropriations will continue. Open and standing appropriations in the education budget are general education, debt service and property tax aids.
- Will special education funding continue? Special education is not an open and standing appropriation but the ruling also refers to the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution that requires Minnesota to perform “certain core functions of the government pursuant to an intergovernmental compact agreement or congressional mandate.”
- What payment schedule will be used? Even though the Governor and Legislature have agreed that they will need to continue the education shift to balance the state budget, current law calls for returning to the 90/10 schedule.
I hope to have answers to these questions and more after the conference call tomorrow. If you are interested, you can watch the press conference conducted by Governor Dayton’s attorney, David Lillehaug, following the release of the Court ruling today: http://www.youtube.com/user/MNHouseInfo?feature=mhee#p/u/0/AptZcKhHIVM
You can also continue to refer to the MDE shutdown website and the state’s Be Ready website.