Fair / 9° F
School leaders: Bill hurts students
Published 12:00pm Thursday, April 9, 2009Local school district leaders say a bill passed Tuesday in the Minnesota Senate would have a devastating impact on the education system.
The bill, which passed with a 37-29 vote, calls for a seven percent cut in education spending, or $972 million. But with federal stimulus funds, cuts would shrink to 3.2 percent, roughly $452.8 million.
Included are cuts in per pupil spending by $273, and an expansion of Q Comp, a pay for performance teacher funding program.
For the Fergus Falls District, which enrolls some 2,500 students, cuts would amount to roughly $82,000.
“Everything would have to be looked at all over again,” said Fergus Falls Superintendent Jerry Ness. “We would have to re-think everything and how we do business.”
Ness said while cuts would certainly have to be made, the district would have to examine all programs to determine where funds would be pulled from.
“Losing three percent of the funding, it would dramatically affect us,” Ness said.
In Underwood, district leaders are bracing for cuts they consider to be unavoidable with a diminished budget.
“All schools are going to be in the very difficult situation and decisions that nobody wants to make are going to have to be made,” said Underwood Principal John Hamann. “The bottom line is it’s going to hurt the students.”
The bill also calls for pre-kindergarten pilot projects for Otter Tail County, starting 2011.
“Anything with preschool…we would jump all over that,” Hamann said.
The Senate is set to vote on the final addition of the bill early next week. The House is expected to favor a stand-still in funding, while the governor is proposing an increase in funding, specifically for the Q Comp program.
Funding for education currently makes up 40 percent of the state’s budget.
