The Fargo Forum has an interesting op/ed about the Democrat plan for funding North Dakota’s public schools, thus allegedly providing property tax relief (which is where the majority of school funds come from now).

Democrats in the North Dakota Legislature have proposed a K-12 education funding formula that deserves a serious look. It calls for more new money than in Gov. John Hoeven’s budget for education. It looks to try and restore more of the state’s neglected constitutional role in funding public education.

The so-called “70-30 initiative” is wonderfully simple, and that might be its greatest asset – or its weakness. The provisions include directing the Legislature to invest 195 million new dollars during the next two years. That’s more than twice the amount proposed by the governor and the Commission on Education Improvement. Here’s the breakdown in the Democratic-NPL bill:

- Directs schools to allocate 70 percent of new money to education instruction and services – the classroom.

- Gives schools the discretion to direct up to 30 percent of new money into property tax relief.

- Gives the local school board the discretion of using any part of the

30 percent portion for education and services, if the board determines that option is best for schools.

My stated concern about this Democrat plan (and it applies to the Republican plan as well) is that by making the local school districts dependent on a level of state funding the state legislature usurps some of the school district’s decision-making discretion.  The Forum editorial claims that we should be happy with this plan’s “emphasis on local control of the resources,” but I’m not impressed by it.  Already this plan splits the funding and tells the school districts exactly what percentage of it the school districts can spend and on what.  Granted, it still seems pretty hands-off, but let’s not forget that this is just the beginning.  As the school districts become dependent on state funding the legislature will undoubtedly put more controls on how the state money can be spent.

When you invite politicians to fund something those politicians love to meddle with whatever they’re funding.  That’s true on any level of government.  So what we should be concerned about is not the level of meddling the Democrats are proposing now - which is admittedly trivial - but rather the level of meddling the legislators will get up to once they’re in the driver’s seat with this funding.  I’d just as soon the local school districts keep the same level of autonomy in decision making they enjoy now, but I don’t think that’s likely to happen if we open the door to this state spending.

The Forum editorial continues:

There’s little doubt lawmakers will put more money into K-12 public education. They have to address the state/local funding imbalance that has developed over the last 15 years, whereby the state’s share has shrunk by about 30 percent while local districts’ share has jumped about 190 percent. The result has been a significant shift to local property taxes. The shift has generated a simmering property tax revolt across the state, and both the governor’s and the Democrats’ plans include some form of school property tax relief.

This is more than a little misleading.  Yes the state’s share of school funding as a percentage has gone down, but in real dollars the state has actually increased per-student spending by 10% over the last twenty years.  In 1985 the state was spending $3,107 per student.  In 2005 the state was spending $3,419 per student.  That’s an increase, not a decline.  The reason the state’s share of school funding as a percentage has gone down is because the amount the schools are spending has skyrocketed.  Since 1985 North Dakota’s public schools have increased spending 48.5%, and the reason property taxes have gone up so high is that most of that increase has been funded by property tax dollars.

Which is as it should be, isn’t it?  If a local school district decides to increase spending shouldn’t that increase be funded by the people who live in that school district?  I think so.

And this also illustrates how nobody is approaching this problem from the angle of fiscal efficiency and responsibility.  Have these increases in school spending been necessary?  What are we spending it on?  Are there ways to make what we’re currently spending on education less?  Are there ways to make our tax dollars go further on education?

I think there are, but nobody seems willing to talk about those solutions.