Republican Governor Proposes $300M for Education and Property Tax Relief

...now which Dakota do you think that happened in?

While the Legislature continues to dilly-dally over education funding (and find fun ways to whack away at school budgets, like HB 1076), and while Governor Rounds plays the scold to our school districts, let's take a look at how our Republicanly governed neighbors in North Dakota handle education:

Bill Will Increase School Funding in North Dakota

An Education Funding Reform and Property Tax Relief Plan in the amount of $300 million was announced Thursday by North Dakota Gov. John Hoeven [Republican] in Fargo and Bismarck. The package will alleviate the burden carried by local taxpayers and increase funding for the North Dakota school districts by reducing school levies an average of 50 mills and boosting state support for schools to 66 percent of the cost of education...

"At last we have a major proposal to dramatically increase the state's share of the cost of education," said Sen. Flakoll [R-44/Fargo]. "As the state contributes $300 million more to the per-student payment, the local share of the cost will actually go down."

"The Governor's proposal for $200 million in property tax relief will have a big impact on people's tax statement," said Sen. Wardner [R-37/Dickinson]. "This is needed right now to hold down the local assessments."

The additional $100 million would come in the form of an increase for education.

"I am very pleased that the Governor is willing to set aside as much as $100 million for increased K-12 funding," said Rep. Kelsch [R-34/Mandan]. "We need to continue the great progress we have been making in education." [staff, Wahpeton Daily News, 2008.02.25]

That's Republicans talking. Of course, Gov. Hoeven is running for re-election, so maybe he's just offering some smiley election-year promises. His Democratic opponent Merle Boucher offered a very similar plan last year. Another Democratic opponent, Tim Mathern, calls Hoeven's plan a "positive development" [see Jonathan Rivoli, "Hoeven Offers Education, Tax Relief Plan," Bismarck Tribune, 2008.02.22].

And this plan looks that much less like an election-year stunt when you consider that comes on top of a $90 million increase in K-12 funding that prompted North Dakota schools to drop their lawsuit against the state.

$90 million in one year. $100 million over the next two. And our lawmakers tell us South Dakota will always be at the bottom of the education funding stats, that we can't find even $30 million a year to bring our teacher pay up from 51st to 5oth in the nation (to tie with North Dakota).

And don't tell me North Dakota has more money -- they don't. Check out these stats from the US Bureau of Economic Analysis:

2006 stats	ND	SD
per capita income 2006	$32,552	$33,929
percent increase	3.8	4.3
total personal income	$20.7B	$26.5B
population	636,000	782,000
Source: "State Personal Income 2006 (Table 1)," Bureau of Economic Analysis, 2007.03.27

North Dakota has less money and fewer people, yet they are able to pump more money into education than South Dakota does. Dr. Schaff may remind me that money alone does not produce better educational outcomes, but money does produce competitive (not to mention moral) wages.

Maybe we need to add one more stat to explain the difference between how North Dakota and South Dakota approach education funding:

	ND	SD
political imagination and will	10	0
source: Madville Times