North Dakota’s Misguided Education Funding

Ken McCracken • October 24, 2007

I’ve been spending a lot of time griping about spending in North Dakota, specifically the way it’s grown under Governor John Hoeven. One specific area that even adamant critics of the state’s too-high spending have been hesitant to harp on is education spending. And for obvious reasons. For someone who is saying that we’re spending too much it’s too easy for the other side to say that they want kids to get an inferior education. Which isn’t true, of course. All people like me want is efficient spending, but that doesn’t stop those charges from being made.
Regardless, I think education funding is something we really need to take a look at in this state. For instance, check out the increase in general fund spending over the last several years:

Now, some might see that much of an increase in spending on education as a good thing, but when trend for the number of students enrolled in North Dakota’s public schools looks like this…

…there’s a serious problem. We have increased spending on public schools in this state by hundreds of millions of dollars to educate a state-wide student body that has been drastically reduced in size. And while state-level spending has little impact on local property taxes, it’s this same trend of “spend spend spend” that is causing property taxes to go so high. Which, frankly, is probably the issue North Dakotans are most upset about right now.
What we need is some leadership at the state level to take this sort of spending to task. And I realize that, politically speaking, that’s no easy task for all the reasons I described above, but that just means we need leaders in the state who are up to the challenge in a way that goes beyond the Governor’s property tax refund from income taxes which does absolutely nothing to address the spending problems that are driving the tax problem in the first place.
Sadly, it doesn’t appear as though Governor Hoeven or even anyone in our state legislature is that leader.

Tags: North Dakota News, Politics

http://SayAnythingBlog.com The_Whistler_ofnd

It seems to me that education funding needs to be figured on a per pupil basis.
http://SayAnythingBlog.com The_Whistler_ofnd

ND’s school districts have different levels of available property values to generate school funding. Why should a kid in Williston have less of an education than one in Grand Forks or why should his parents pay more for that same level of education.

Yeah those guys in Williston are really suffering? Buncha charity cases what with all of that oil.

This is not an issue of more money, it is an issue of fair and equal as mandated by the ND constitution.

George’s plan is to give some school districts a lot of state money per pupil and some not so much.

Fair and EQUAL.

Actually I understand the point about some districts not having as much, but there is no uniformity in the schools. Some schools spend a lot and some not so much.

Compare Bismarck and Fargo in 2005(because I have it on my computer) Fargo spent 16% more and I would say that Fargo kids did not get a better education than Bismarck kids.

I say give each school a per pupil stipend and let the locals decide how much more they want to spend.
http://SayAnythingBlog.com The_Whistler_ofnd

Equity in the case of North Dakota is the property rich (per student) school district get less than the property poor districts.

I think it’s the wrong way to go. State aid should be equal across all boundries. If some kind of unobtainable equality were necessary then we should take education out of the hands of the locals and leave it to one big district.

I think that’s the wrong way to go, but throwing money at the problem isn’t the right thing to do.

As far as the oil trust fund it looks like the legislature has been stealing money out of it rather than letting it grow for the days when oil tax revenue is lower. That’s irresponsible behavior something I’m not at all surprised the state legislature is doing.
http://www.bikebubba.blogspot.com/ Bike Bubba

Rob, your second graph needs some labels on the X axis, I dare suggest. If it’s the same time frame, it would seem (per Whistler’s point) that per student funding has gone up about 50% in the past few years.

I wonder if SAT scores have gone up 50%. (ha ha)
http://SayAnythingBlog.com The_Whistler_ofnd

I think that whole equity thing should be scrapped. Every student is as important to the North Dakota taxpayer as any other child. Therefore it should be a flat rate per child in school.

Of course there needs to be a separate funding mechanism for special needs.

No school district is the same anyway. Look at the variation between all of the school districts across the state.

That reminds me of the Einsteins who claim that making 12 consolidated school districts across the state will save money. I don’t see how eliminating the thrifty districts and putting the spendthrift districts in charge is going to save anyone any money.
http://SayAnythingBlog.com The_Whistler_ofnd

By the way George, I was reading the budget trying to figure out why exactly the “other” funds was down for edumacation. (sic).

I see that 115,000 million dollars was transfered out of the permanent oil tax trust fund which is supposed to be used to fund our schools in perpetuity.

Did that money get blown in general or did it get transfered to the general fund and then allocated for education?

I also not that this fund is apparently Hoeven’s piggy bank where he’s been pulling money out for the Centers of Excellence, $20.3 Million in the last biennium and $15 in this one.

If I remember the 1980 vote was promised that the oil tax would go for funding the schools?
http://www.bismarckndblog.com/ Dakota Lifestyle: Beyond the

This last legislative session saw a major overhaul of k-12 funding in the state, including a sizeable increase in spending per pupil that helped the state ward off a law suit. One of the most concise explanations of the outcome of this legislation can be found at the North Dakota Farm Bureau site (posted 4/28/2007 under the information center), or google North Dakota SB 2200.
http://SayAnythingBlog.com The_Whistler_ofnd

an equal amount of money available for education for each student in the state,

I guess if equity is being forced upon us then it’s time for the state to limit the amount that a school district can spend.

Because frankly there’s no other way to achieve “equity.” It’s a horrible concept but that’s what the trend is driving us towards.
http://SayAnythingBlog.com The_Whistler_ofnd

The legislative assembly shall provide for a uniform system of free public schools throughout the state, beginning with the primary and extending through all grades up to
and including schools of higher education,

I believe that’s the relevant passage out of the ND constitution that supposedly mandates the change in the equity measurement.

I don’t see that requiring a “uniform” amount of money but if it does then it would mandate a uniform amount of money spent and uniform student/teacher ratio etc etc etc.
george

Rob is correct. State spending on education has outpaced inflation.

First a correction…Rob loves to use general funds which is 70% of the total state education funding. If you look at the whole picture, funding has grown 27% or an average of 2.7% per year since 1999.

According to the US Department of Commerce, Bureau of Labor Statistics, the CPI has grown an average of 2.5% from 1999 to 2006.

Until the 2007-09 budget, total education funding in ND lagged the CPI.

So why the change in 2007?

In order to avoid a court order settlement of the equity issue in North Dakota, the Governor worked out a settlement that probably saved our state millions in future court ordered funding. Our state promised a minimum cash deal with a fundamental change in how money is distributed. ND is the only state to resolve the equity issue outside the court system.

Despite Whistler’s contention that all $$$ should be per pupil, the reality is that ND’s school districts have different levels of available property values to generate school funding. Why should a kid in Williston have less of an education than one in Grand Forks or why should his parents pay more for that same level of education. This is not an issue of more money, it is an issue of fair and equal as mandated by the ND constitution.

I realize you are no fan of Hoeven and give him little credit ever, but this is one area where you might consider that the governor got it right in a big way. Look at other states where the courts are in charge and you will see what I mean.

And even if you still think the state is the problem, you have to admit it is dwarfed by the local problem. School districts have been living off valuation increases that masked their true tax increases. And to further hide the problem, we have heard a chorus of local officials and Democrats claiming that the local property taxes were the result of a too tight state purse.

How ridiculous. Yes, people are upset about property taxes and they should be, but the state is not the problem. Until we put the responsibility back where it belongs, the problem will never truly be resolved.
http://www.valleydeals.com/cgi-bin/board2/YaBB.pl Kevin

I’ll bet a lot of that taxpayer money wound up in Warren Larson’s pocket!
http://www.williston.k12.nd.us/welcome-superintendent.htm
http://www.bismarckndblog.com/ Dakota Lifestyle: Beyond the

The way it was explained to me (and I did plague the Governor’s office over this issue) was that the huge increase in spending to ward off the suit was aimed at providing close to an equal amount of money available for education for each student in the state, no matter what school district they were from. I understood that it will take a few years for true equity to be achieved while the state adjusts to this new distribution.

Once equity is achieved, I believe the powers that be will be trying to determine what an adequate education is and how to provide that.

Does anyone know if the Education Commission is meeting, or where and when it meets? I can find a list of the people who are on the board on Gov. Hoeven’s home page, but nothing about meetings. I believe Lt. Gov. Jack Dalrymple chairs the commission. I wonder if now would be the time to bring concerns to him, although overall I have to admit I like this new funding scenario.
http://www.bikebubba.blogspot.com/ Bike Bubba

Now wait a second here; if Rob’s using anything close to the same X axis on the second graph as on the first, what we have is surging school funding with plunging enrollment. Arguing “equity” between school districts simply misses the point; the cost of educating a child is going up far faster than inflation in NoDak.

Does “equity” mean “fleecing the taxpayers?

Moreover, it’s exactly right to point out that putting high spending/wasteful districts in charge, which is effectively what’s happened, is not exactly a way to either equity or responsible spending. On the bright side, some districts provide opportunitites to attract residents; others just waste the money. Some do a bit of both. That doesn’t mean that the district that makes do with less is doing its students any wrong.
george

Whistler

Actually, equity in this case only relates only to the $$$ the state gives to school districts and how that is adjusted for the local ability to collect property taxes. Total spending is a completely another matter. Fargo is a great example of schools run amuck.

The Oil and Gas Fund had a variety of uses, not just education. (http://www.legis.nd.gov/assembly/60-2007/docs/pdf/99054.pdf) More over, with $710 million spent on education, it can be argues that it all went to that purpose.

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North Dakota’s Misguided Education Funding

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