Per-Pupil Funding Increase Lauded By Policy Group

(KNSI) – A new report from North Star Policy Action is lauding the increase in Minnesota’s per-pupil state funding for education.

The group says when it studied the issue in 2022, it found that state aid was down 20% over a two-decade period when adjusting for inflation, and that gap was mostly filled by the 2023 state legislature budget.

State aid soared 11.6% from Fiscal Year 2023 to Fiscal Year 2024. NPSA Executive Director Jake Schwitzer says, “Minnesota’s future will be stronger because of the work done in the last legislative session. There’s more work to be done to make up for the lack of funding over 20 years, but this is a hugely positive change in direction.”

The Minnesota House Research Department says school districts get a significant portion of their revenue from other sources that were not considered within the report. In the 2022-23 school year, “total revenue for Minnesota’s public schools is estimated at $15.440 billion, of which $10.085 billion is from state aid, $4.341 billion is from local property taxes and other local source revenue, and $851 million is from federal funds.”

COVID-19 relief funds from the federal government should also be noted. Between 2020 and 2024, District 742 was allocated about $56 million. In 2022-23, over 16% of the budget came from federal sources.

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