To the Editor, Many of you may have heard the story about the Thief River Falls School District, and how its students raised money to keep a third-grade classroom from local budget reductions. The story highlights a failed levy as to why the district needed to make the reduction. And all of this happened as the majority party touted its “historic funding increase” for schools statewide. As is usually the case, there’s more to this story. The reality is, that “historic” funding came with plenty of strings attached. With more than 65 Democrat mandates also forced upon our school districts last year, many of them are now operating with less funding than before the “historic” amount of money was allocated. Many of us on the Republican side recognized early that some school districts were not going to be as successful as they expected under this proposal and tried to do something about it. Under our alternative – which the majority party shot down - Thief River Falls would have received $256,000 more in Fiscal Year 2024 than they are currently receiving under the Democrat education funding law, and $669,000 more in Fiscal Year 2025. In fact, our plan would have provided more than $3 million in additional funding across all of our school districts. Some specific examples: Thief River Falls: $925,106 Roseau: $560,861 Warroad: $467,550 Warren-Alvarado-Oslo: $264,471 Newfolden/Marshall County Central: $199,288 Instead, we now have students raising money to save classrooms. And while those kids should be commended for their efforts raising $70,000 for this cause is unbelievable - it never should have needed to happen. Worse, that $70,000 is ultimately going to be taxed by the state, while the $925,000 Thief River Falls could have received under the GOP education funding alternative would have arrived tax free.
State Representative John Burkel Badger
