Legislators hear complaints
about school funding

State Representatives Mark Olson and Bruce Anderson heard a series of spirited remarks about the state’s prospective school funding budget from a dozen parents, students, school board members and staff Friday, March 9, at Buffalo High School.
The afternoon meeting was attended by at least 50 people from Annandale and about 100 more from Maple Lake, St. Michael, Monticello and Buffalo.
The Annan-dale delegation included Supt. Steve Niklaus, board members, teachers, students and parents.
According to information distributed at the meeting, Gov. Jesse Ventura’s budget calls for no increase in state funding for local districts in 2001-02, and very small increases in 2003-03.
Annandale’s increase would amount to 0.8 percent; Buffalo’s 0.6 percent, Maple Lake’s 1.2 percent, Monticello’s 0.8 percent, and St. Michael/Albertville 0.6 percent.
Buffalo School District chairman Bob Halagan opened the meeting by saying, “we don’t live in an area immune to inflation or immune to increased cost.”
He called the governor’s budget “an absolute betrayal of the trust” and said his district’s budget “is one with no fluff and no fat. At the minimum, we must receive a 3 to 4 percent increase just to stay where we are. If not, programs will be dismantled.”
Halagan called upon the Legislature for intervention. “The legislature must take us where the governor is not taking us” he said.
“To propose a budget where our district loses money is ensuring the dismantling of programs that our Legislature is so fond of saying we must have.”
Annandale School Board chairman Mike Schmidt told the legislators that schools will receive 1.2 percent less in the next two years due to phase-outs of funding formulas.
That’s aside from the absence of an increase in the state’s basic funding for schools under Ventura’s proposed budget.
Annandale schools will lose $28,000 in vocational funding alone, he said, because it’s one of the things being phased out.
Maple Lake school board chairman Arne Michalicek took the podium to assert that “not all schools are ‘black holes.’ It gets tiring all of the time, to hear that we’re not doing a good job.”
Mary Bemboom, a teacher at Bendix Elementary in Annandale, said she has seen class sizes increase from 22 students to 28.
She complained that with such numbers she is unable to plan many hands-on activities and relies instead on “paper-pencil” ones. “I don’t see where we can cut,” she said.
Several students made statements. Ann Welter, a Buffalo High School senior, argued that abundant funding of schools benefited society.
She said, “kids are most impressionable, and school is the place where kids spend the most time. We come home, we go to school, and we go to bed.”
Anderson (R- District 19B) said, “from what I have heard from my colleagues, the budget we have before us can’t stay that way.”
Olson (R- District 19A) was less supportive of increased funding from the state.
Speaking of “taming government” and “a growing change among the electorate,” he told the audience that the governor’s Spartan budget proposal “is very healthy. This is good.”
“The governor says: ‘show me outcomes before we give you more.’”
Olson showed the audience a graph relating spending and test scores, saying “the first question is: Are we being cost effective?”
But he also spoke of “pendulum swings” and said the meeting’s input was important.
After the meeting, Buffalo Supt. Tom Nelson said he was pleased with the results. “People got to share concerns, and the legislators seemed to be hearing what people were saying.
“I think the legislators will intervene. It’s a question of the level of intervention,” he said. “I think people will be happy with inflationary increases in funding.”
Nelson added: “These meetings are being held all over the state, and one hopes they make a difference.”
Niklaus said he believed the legislators listened to the concerns expressed, so it was effective in letting them know how the governor’s budget will affect each of the schools.
The Annandale board at its meeting on Monday, March 19, was expected to consider authorizing the administration to propose reductions in programs and teachers.
The administration would prepare a list of recommended cuts for action at the April meeting, Niklaus said.
(Paul Maravelas of the Wright County Journal-Press and Annandale Advocate staff contributed to this story.)