Atkins Sees K-12 Funding in the Spotlight for the 2013 Legislative Session

Minnesota has long been a leader in education, with our great schools, great teachers, and great parents helping us build a well-educated workforce that has kept Minnesota’s economy ahead of the national economy.

But, in areas like ours with relatively modest property wealth, there has been a growing disparity and dysfunction in education funding that doesn’t just threaten our local students’ ability to get a solid education and compete, it squeezes many of our local property taxpayers to the breaking point. 

I have a proposal to change that inequity during the 2013 legislative session.  With additional legislators from similarly-situated suburban districts being elected in 2012 as a result of redistricting, I am optimistic about getting it done.

Let’s start with a little background. 

As of this year, 90% of Minnesota school districts now have passed referendums to raise additional operating funds to run their local schools.  That statistic is bad enough, but worse yet is that not all referendums are created equal.  In communities with lower property wealth, passage of a referendum yields dramatically lower resources, while simultaneously gouging homeowners with a much higher property tax bill than if they lived in a school district with high property wealth. 

Thus, in areas like Mendota Heights with modest property wealth, students get fewer resources, and our homeowners pay way more than in school districts with higher property wealth. 

Here is an example of how bad the situation has become:

A referendum approved by local ISD 197 voters at the current state limit of $1,633 would now cost the owner of a $100,000 home in Mendota Heights more than twice as much as the owner of a $100,000 home in high property wealthy district like Hopkins or Minnetonka.

It would be like going to the gas station at Dodd and 110 and paying premium prices for regular gas, while the driver next to you from Edina gets to buy premium gas for regular prices.  It’s plainly unfair to our students and to our taxpayers.

Not a New Problem

This isn’t the first time Minnesota has experienced a disparity like this.  Indeed, the disparity got so bad at one point back the 1980’s that there was a lawsuit brought by the school districts with lower property wealth.  I wrote a 63-page legal brief about that court case back when I was in law school.

In response to the lawsuit, the Minnesota legislature addressed the issue in the late 1980s through something called “equalization aid.”  The intent was to make the cost of a school levy dollar uniform across the state, so residents in all districts have the same tax burden to raise the same amount of levy funding for their students. Equalization provides a match of state aid to provide tax relief for citizens in low property wealth districts.

The problem is that the equalization factor was a fixed number and wasn’t adjusted as property values rose over time.

Since 1995, state equalization aid has dropped from 69 cents of every dollar to just 28 cents of every dollar for our local districts. This has unfairly hurt our local students and local property taxpayers.

Time for a New Fix

There is hope for a change in this unfair funding system.

As a result of legislative redistricting, there are going to be more than a dozen additional legislators from low and moderate property wealth districts like ours.  I have already started to connect with the candidates in those districts – both Democrats and Republicans – to discuss addressing this unequal and unfair treatment of our local students and taxpayers.

On a bipartisan basis, with our new, additional legislative strength as a result of redistricting, it is my intention to introduce legislation to balance out this unfair system.

Addressing this inequity will get our students additional resources, on par with students in higher property wealth districts, while simultaneously reducing the unfair property tax burden on our local homeowners and businesses.

Input Sought

I would welcome input on this issue, through comments below, by emailing me at Rep.Joe.Atkins@house.mn, or by giving me a call at (651) 296-4192.

Education is one of the most important responsibilities state government has and we need to make improvements to our funding system to ensure that our kids have the resources they need to succeed and that the funding that provides those resources is fair.