Minnesotans overwhelmingly back statewide school funding measure

Minnesotans on Tuesday were asked if the state should channel more money to all state public school districts through the Permanent School Fund, a trust fund started in 1858 to help finance schools through timber and mining lease revenue from trust land.

Voters overwhelmingly said yes. The measure passed with more than 70 percent of the vote.

It will result in about $33 per pupil in extra income for students without raising the tax burden on Minnesotans.

In Minneapolis, that will add another $900,000 to the school district budget. In the Duluth Public Schools, it will add $280,000 to the system.

The Permanent School Fund relies on timber and mining lease revenue from trust land that is invested by the state and then distributed to school districts.

The fund is somewhere around $2.3 billion and growing by approximately 8 percent each year. But schools only receive interest and dividends, not capital gains, which means that the more than 500 schools and districts getting payouts from the fund are seeing only 2.5 percent of the fund’s value.

During the last legislative session, a bipartisan group of lawmakers agreed to let voters decide whether schools should get full access to the funds — a 4.5 percent return on investment instead of the current 2.5 percent.

Past reporting from MPR News education reporter Elizabeth Shockman contributed to this report.

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