A Communication for Education Advocates in SEE Districts - May 21, 2021
** ACTION ALERT ** ACTION ALERT **
There is a lot of action behind the scene as chairs of the working groups' trade offers and negotiate over finance and policy provisions. In education, what schools need above all else is money on the basic formula: the per-pupil funding stream districts rely on to maintain valuable programming for their students. SEE and most education organizations are advocating for 2% increases in each of the next two years. The increases are possible given the $525 million spending target given to education. EMAIL YOUR STATE LEGISLATORS NOW AND ASK FOR 2% INCREASES TO THE BASIC FORMULA FOR EACH OF THE NEXT TWO YEARS and copy top state leadership and working group members. You can find more detailed information and email addresses here.
The 2021 Legislative Session constitutionally ended at midnight last Monday. Also, on Monday, top state leadership – Senate Majority Leader Paul Gazelka (R-East Gull Lake), Speaker of House Melissa Hortman (DFL-Brooklyn Park), and DFL Governor Tim Walz – finally reached a global agreement on the state's next 2-year budget. Federal Covid relief aid and the state surplus helped each side attain their top priorities. Republicans fought off any tax increases and assured that federal Covid relief aid that went to businesses through loans and individuals through unemployment payments would not be taxed at the state level. Democrats succeeded in getting an education spending target closer to their proposed $772 million than the Senate's $152 million. Here is the agreement signed by the leaders.
As the session ended, all the conference committees are now working groups with the same mission - to reconcile the House and Senate versions of the major finance bills. Leadership set deadlines for the working groups to have spreadsheets of each new spending item completed by 5:00 p.m. on May 28 and the bill finance and policy language completed by June 4. The total E-12 education budget target is $600 million with $525 million from the state's general fund and $75 million from a set-aside of federal Covid funds to be used at the Governor's discretion.
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The Governor directs his discretionary dollars to summer school programming to help struggling students recover from the disruption in their education and lives due to the pandemic. The funding is a mix of direct dollars to schools and grant funding. All districts will receive some funding through a "formula" developed by the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE). Here is a broad breakdown of the academic and mental health supports the Governor is funding. We await news from MDE on the specific details on school district funding and how districts can apply for the grant funding. It will be interesting if MDE will address the considerable disparities in federal Covid aid, with some districts getting over $8,000 per student and others getting less than $500 per student. Schools with higher concentrations of at-risk students must receive more resources. However, the additional costs associated with providing an education for students through the different scenarios of distant and in-person learning over this school year exceeded the federal Covid funding in many school districts. Federal aid will not cover additional support services for their struggling students over the summer or the upcoming school year in these districts.
As I said in the action alert, there is a lot of action behind the scene as the working group's chairs negotiate over finance and policy provisions. The House and Senate sometimes seem to operate on different planets. Yet, they have found common ground in supporting students' mental health needs and closing the achievement gap between students of color and their white peers through initiatives like early learning scholarships and increasing the diversity of Minnesota's teachers. After determining the percent increases to the basic formula, they will look at the funding areas where they agree* and work on funding most of those at some level. Both chairs will likely take a token amount of the budget target to spend on their top priorities (excluding measures that are vehemently opposed in the other body). After all, there must be some advantages to rising to the chair of a finance committee. The schedule is tight, with one week to get the budget items resolved and only one more week to finalize the policy. Thus, major policy initiatives not supported in both the House and Senate will likely get dropped. The working group's bill must be voted on in the House and Senate floors, but it cannot be amended. If it passes, it goes to the Governor for signature. If it should fail in either the House or Senate, which is unlikely, it will be chaos. Plus, the legislature will face the looming deadline of July 1, when the current state budget ends. The state will begin to shut down. Thousands of state employees may not get paid, services relied upon by Minnesotans become unavailable, and the state parks will close, all completely unnecessary. The legislature needs to get its work done. Stay tuned.
*The link is to the SEE side-by-side comparison. The first seven pages show the areas of agreement between the House and Senate and provisions already adopted in the final education omnibus bill. The remaining 24 pages show how much they differ. I apologize for the earlier versions of the document, as it contained way too many errors. I have cleaned it up and hope that any remaining errors are not too distracting!
If you have any questions or comments, please don't hesitate to contact me.
