Say Anything Blog

The NDEA, North Dakota’s chapter of the national teacher’s union, is running ads on the internet leading to this website giving Governor John Hoeven a big, wet, sloppy kiss for HB1400 which would appropriate another $268 million to education in the state (70% of it going to teacher pay per the NDEA) over the next two budgeting periods (fiscal note on the bill here).

When you couple that with the $300 million in tax relief spending (yes, I said tax relief spending) the Governor is also trying to get through the legislature we come up with well over half a billion dollars in education funding passed this legislation alone.  That’s $568 million total.  Or roughly five times what the AIG executives got in bonuses.

And all of that spending is coming at a time when school enrollment trends look like this:

Over half a billion in new school funding to educate tens of thousands of fewer students.  Something is very, very wrong with that picture.  But no wonder the NDEA loves the Governor.

Now, you could argue that not all of the $300 million in tax relief spending (I said it again) is new school spending.  Only $100 million goes directly to the school districts.  The other $200 million is a property tax buy down which gives the money to the localities in exchange for decreased school spending and (the Governor tells us) decreased property taxes.  The reality is that there’s no guarantees that localities won’t offset reductions in school spending bought down by that $200 million with increased spending on, say, park districts.  Or other things the local property tax funds.  Meaning there is no guarantee that $200 million will actually reduce local spending and thus local property taxes.

But even if you take it out of the $568 million funding figure I quote above, you’re still left with $368 million in new school funding.  Again, to educate tens of thousands fewer students.

That’s indefensible.