Each dollar helps our schools

By The Daily Journal (Contact) | The Daily Journal

Published Thursday, May 15, 2008

Fifty-one dollars sure doesn't seem like a lot of money. Fifty-one dollars won't even fill most gas tanks anymore.

But for school districts like Fergus Falls, which is operating in statutory operating debt, even $51 can add up to a lot of money.

The Minnesota House of Representatives and their counterparts in the Senate on Tuesday passed measures that would allocate funding in the amount of $51 per student to school districts across the state in a one-time funding plan.

The proposal uses untapped funds set aside by the Legislature for the Q-Comp plan that was intended to fund school efforts to change the way teachers are paid.

Most school districts, however, didn't embrace the changes, leaving the funding unallocated.

While the proposal is no fix to the problems school districts such as Fergus Falls are experiencing, we encourage Gov. Tim Pawlenty to sign the bill because, frankly, every dollar matters when it comes to funding education.

Multiply $51 by the approximately 2,500 students in the Fergus Falls School District, and the proposal would bring about $130,000 into the district.

The funding would be welcomed in our community and could be used to reduce the debt the district is operating under. There's another use for the funding, as well.

That money could restore, with salaries, two of the 30 teacher positions that were recently eliminated by the school board in a budget-cutting measure.

The money would also cure the ills that the music program is suffering and would be more than enough to maintain the extra-curricular programs such as the pep band and marching band that band boosters say are being threatened by the impending budget cuts.

Rep. Bud Nornes (R-Fergus Falls) voted for the measure Tuesday. Sen. Dan Skogen, who was not in St. Paul for the vote, tells us he would have voted for the measure. Let's hope the governor puts away his veto pen and follows suit.