ND Democrats: We Need More Funding For Schools…But Do We Really?

• January 19, 2007

ND Democrat Minority Leader Merle Boucher has an op/ed in the Grand Forks Herald today making a predictable call for more money for North Dakota’s public schools. I know that school funding is a sacred cow in political circles. If you oppose raising school funding you’re going to be cast as an ignoramus who wants to keep kids stupid and illiterate, but before we all jump on Boucher’s “throw money at ‘em” bandwagon I think we need to take a long, hard look at school spending in North Dakota to date.
What seems to be driving most of this concern over school spending is the fact that a lot of North Dakotans are unhappy about the amount they pay in property taxes. People like Boucher are calling for more money for North Dakota schools not because the schools necessarily need it (though what school administrator has ever said they have enough money?) but rather because they want to lower the property taxes we pay. I see two problems with this line of thinking, however.

Shifting the burden for school funding from local taxes to the state doesn’t really reduce the burden that school spending represents for tax payers. Whether it is paid for with property taxes or state taxes North Dakota’s citizens are still paying for it.
Why aren’t we looking at why ND’s schools are costing so much in the first place?

According to this spreadsheet from the North Dakota Department of Public Instruction approximately 118,089 students attend public schools in the state in 1985. In 2005 that number was 102,096. That’s a decrease of 15,993 students state wide.
According to that same spread sheet, school spending was $379,050,929 in 1985. In 2005 school spending was $829,206,450.
If we adjust the 1985 school spending for inflation into 2005 dollars we get $672,687,034, meaning that from 1985 to 2005 we’ve seen a real increase of 23% in school spending in North Dakota to educate 15,993 fewer students.
I don’t know about the rest of you, but that doesn’t make any sense. And if North Dakota citizens want to be upset about high property taxes they should be upset with school districts that are clearly spending more than they need rather than the state for not sending enough tax dollars.
And rather than looking at ways to spend more on education, I think we should be looking at ways to spend less. Or, at the very least, make what we’re spending now go further.

Tags: Education, North Dakota News, Politics

http://Array halatbis

This is the way a touchy problem gets fixed by the politicians–make it look like we are doing something. Make no mistake–if money comes from the state coffers–the strings will soon follow. It is a stealth attack without the legislature directly confronting the problem.
http://www.valleydeals.com/cgi-bin/board2/YaBB.pl Kevin

Merle Boucher is just another useful idiot for the out-of-state labor union bosses!
Why in the world are taxpayers putting up with a bunch of people who work part time hours for full time pay and benefits?
http://SayAnythingBlog.com The_Whistler_ofnd

I don’t disagree with your point freep, but it seems to me that the increased property taxes on the new houses in that development should go a long way towards paying for the new schools.

That means existing homes shouldn’t be bearing that much of the cost for building new schools.

Coupling that with your point I think that shows they’ve really been spending like mad to jack up property taxes like they have.

Another issue of course is that the state’s funding is based on the number of students to a large degree. The locals don’t want to make any hard choices (which is their job)and downsize any schools. It’s easier for them just to jack up everyone’s taxes.
tom

“increased property taxes on the new houses”
Recently I was told that because of deferred taxes on new homes in towns with a lot of new developement, such as West Fargo,they will actually be considered a “poor district” and will benefit greatly under the new school plan. Is this so?
http://SayAnythingBlog.com The_Whistler_ofnd

I wasn’t aware that that was that much of a problem. I had thought that the city governments gave away the tax incentives but the schools still got their share.

Frankly I don’t know.

I do think that just because the city of West Fargo decides not to tax taxable property is no excuse for the rest of us to pony up for them.
http://www.freerepublicans.com/ freerepublicans.com

When you have Fargo building new schools like mad in the newer perts of town, all while the overall number of student in Fargo decreases, it is not wonder the cost of education goes up.

How many of these mid-sized towns have new middle schools are almost like Saddam’s palaces?

Does every room really need a $3,000 digital project to teach kids how to read and write poorly?

If the quality of the product and the effective use of dollars increase as fast as spending, no one here would have a problem with more state funding – but the same local officials that have caused property taxes to increase have not spent the dollars wisely.

Those local officials need a swift slap upside the head and a hard kick to the curb.
http://SayAnythingBlog.com The_Whistler_ofnd

Halatbis, I don’t see how the legislature can ‘fix’ the problem of local property taxes in any other way.

They didn’t create the problem, the locals did.
http://sayanythingblog.com robport

The biggest problem in all of this is that no one is willing to look at school spending. It’s like school spending is untouchable. We can’t cut it, we can only raise it.

That’s nonsense.

SayAnythingBlog.com

ND Democrats: We Need More Funding For Schools…But Do We Really?

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