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Serving Northern St. Louis County, Minnesota

Education veto sets stage for special session

Tom Klein
Posted 5/20/15

ST. PAUL – Gov. Mark Dayton announced Tuesday that he will veto the education budget bill, calling the $400 million bill “insufficient,” and summon legislators back to St. Paul for a special …

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Education veto sets stage for special session

Posted

ST. PAUL – Gov. Mark Dayton announced Tuesday that he will veto the education budget bill, calling the $400 million bill “insufficient,” and summon legislators back to St. Paul for a special session.

Dayton’s afternoon news conference followed a late-night push on Monday by legislators to pass major budget bills before the 2015 session ended at midnight. Dayton said he hadn’t even seen most of the bills passed in the last-minute flurry and his staff would be combing through them in the next few days.

Legislators seemed resigned to the idea of a special session prior to Dayton’s press conference. State Rep. David Dill, Crane Lake-DFL, said he expected the governor to follow through on his promise to veto the education budget bill. Senate Majority Leader Tom Bakk, DFL-Cook, and House Speaker Kurt Daudt, R-Crown, also considered a special session inevitable. “The governor is going to do what the governor is going to do,” said Bakk.

State Rep. Tom Anzelc, DFL-Balsam Township, said Dayton is a man of his word and feels strongly that early childhood education should be available to all children across the state.

“So this doesn’t surprise me,” he said of the governor’s decision to call a special session.

Reaction by schools

Area school officials offered a lukewarm response to the education budget bill, which would increase general aid by 1.5 percent in fiscal year 2016 and by 2 percent in fiscal year 2017.

“I hoped it would be more but it’s better than the Republicans’ first proposal,” said Lynette Zupetz, vice chairwoman of the St. Louis County School Board.

Zupetz said the bill does contain some additional funds for Learning Readiness and for long-term facility needs. In addition, St. Louis County School District is among a handful of districts that would benefit from a transportation sparsity aid change included in the package. The district would get roughly an additional $300,000 for transportation, according to St. Louis County School Superintendent Steve Sallee.

“We need that because our transportation costs are enormous,” said Zupetz.

Sallee agreed. “That would be a tremendous help with the large deficit we run in transportation as the largest school district geographically in the state.”

Sallee said he, too, would like too see more money put into education.

“Naturally, with the large surplus I would like to see as much added to the general formula as possible,” he said. “However, I don’t envy the decision-makers in St. Paul. They have some tough decisions to make and not everyone is going to be happy. Overall, I can’t complain. The governor and our representatives have been very supportive of public education.”

Nett Lake Superintendent Steve Thomas said he supports the governor’s position.

“With Minnesota having an approximately $2 billion reserve…I can’t imagine a better use of the dollars than for our children.”

Thomas also backs the governor’s call for universal prekindergarten, saying the early years are critical to a child’s education. “I appreciate the governor fighting as hard as he is for education.”

The Minnesota Rural Education Association said in a statement that while it had hoped for more funding, the bill approved by the Legislature represented a step forward for education on several fronts including basic funding, Early Learning, American Indian education and closing the inequity in facility maintenance.

Governor blasts GOP

Although Dayton said there are other issues including transportation funding and a bonding bill he would like to address in a special session, most of his news conference was devoted to education.

In a letter addressed to House Speaker Daudt, Dayton laid the blame squarely on Republicans.

It’s “incomprehensible that estate tax cuts for millionaires and property tax relief for large corporations are higher priorities for your House Republican Caucus than investing adequately in our students and young children,” Dayton wrote.

The DFL governor said he offered to meet Republicans halfway, dropping his proposal to spend $700 million on education to $550 million. When that failed, he lopped off another $25 million and dropped his insistence on a universal prekindergarten program. In exchange, Dayton wanted Republicans to support his other priorities, including more dollars for Bureau of Indian Affairs schools and funds to eliminate a waiting list for Head Start.

Republicans offered to increase spending for education up to $500 million, but wouldn’t budge any further.

“I met them more than halfway,” said Dayton, who said he was “astonished” that Republicans would not come to an agreement with him after he made deep concessions.

That compromise offer is now off the table, said Dayton, who will make another push for his prekindergarten initiative. Bakk has stressed in recent days he personally supports the governor’s proposal, but he was unable to sell House Republicans on it.

Some school officials expressed apprehension at reopening talks on the education budget bill, fearing it might jeopardize funds already approved by the Legislature.

But Dayton said any funding already in the bill would be protected. “We’ll be adding some things that should be in the $400 million bill but are not,” he promised, including boosting general education funding by 2 percent in each of the next two fiscal years.

Given the Republicans instransigence to his previous overtures, Dayton was asked how he hoped to reach an acceptable compromise in the special session. He urged the public to weigh in and lobby their legislators to support more funding for education.