legislative proposal
The Kids Coalition lawsuit was put on hold earlier this year when Governor John Hoven agreed to put $60 million in new K-12 funding in his budget for the next biennium and to create a commission to present a reworked funding formula to the Legislature. In August, 2006, the first draft of the new education funding formula for K-12 schools was unveiled by the 13-member Commission on Education Improvement.

Features of the proposed formula include:

• Dumping the mill levy deduct which was viewed by many in education as being punitive, taking from property rich districts and redistributing money to property poor districts.
• Districts will get a basic per pupil payment
• Each District’s property taxing ability will be weighted.
• Districts taking in less than the state average in property taxes will get an equalization payment to make up the difference.
• Districts with other wealth such as oil or gas tax payments will have those dollars subtracted from equalization payments.
• Payments will be made using weighting factors to address the costs of teaching special education and students with limited English skills in small or isolated districts.

According to Warren Larson, Williston School District Superintendent, “It’s a far simpler formula. It’s far less complex and does what we always wanted – it meets the needs of kids.”