Pawlenty proposes shift in use of school budgets

Proposal would redirect spending on such items as administration and athletics

By Norman Draper
Star Tribune

Many Minnesota school districts would have to figure out new ways to spend millions of dollars they already have under a proposal made by Gov. Tim Pawlenty.

The plan, announced at a news conference Monday, would require districts to spend at least 70 percent of their budgets on classroom instruction, which includes such expenses as teachers, instructional supplies, and special-ed and vocational-education programs. For most of Minnesota's estimated 343 school districts, that means they would have to shift money to the classroom from such non-classroom expenses as administration, maintenance, staff development and athletics.

State figures from the 2003-04 school year show that Minneapolis and St. Paul, as well as large suburban districts such as Rosemount-Apple Valley-Eagan, Anoka-Hennepin and South Washington County, already meet the 70 percent minimum.

But districts such as Mounds View, Robbinsdale, Bloomington, St. Louis Park, Hopkins, Chaska and Roseville would have to shift amounts ranging as high as $4.8 million to what the 70 percent plan defines as classroom expenses.

The proposal, a recycled and slightly modified version of a similar plan put before the Legislature last year, needs legislators' approval to take effect. Last year's proposal, which had a 65 percent minimum, dropped by the wayside as legislators concentrated on resolving several major funding issues. Like last year's plan, this one allocates no new state money to K-12 education. But Pawlenty said it could result in more than $112 million being redirected statewide to classroom spending.

Critics challenged the plan as "gimmickry" that substitutes arbitrary numbers for true student achievement.

"They tweaked it some to make it look new, but it's pretty much old wine," said Sen. Steve Kelley, DFL-Hopkins, chairman of the Senate Education Committee and a candidate for governor. "It substitutes accounting gimmickry for a real focus on getting results we need with an efficient expenditure of funds." Plus, noted Kelley, Pawlenty's plan slights expenses for media centers and teacher training.

"You go into any school and the media staff is teaching kids how to do research," Kelley said. "That's direct student instruction."

Kelley and others charged Pawlenty with playing politics, latching on to a nationwide conservative movement that is setting similar spending ratios in other states.

Mounds View Superintendent Jan Witthuhn said Pawlenty's plan wrongly excludes such employees as librarians and counselors from the classroom mix.

"They are very direct in their support for kids," she said. "Are they right there in the classroom? No. Are they pretty critical to the operation of a school? Yes."

Mounds View has good reason to be concerned about the plan. According to state figures, it falls below the 70 percent threshold, and would have to shift $2.1 million from non-classroom to classroom funding to meet the plan's requirements. But Witthuhn noted that the district has been spending heavily on school building improvements, which might have been a factor in placing it on the sub-70-percent list. Simply by finishing up those construction projects, the district might be allocating more money to the classroom, taking it over the 70 percent threshold, Witthuhn said.

Bloomington Superintendent Gary Prest said schools were being "blindsided" by the surprise Pawlenty announcement. He said it gave them little time to make comparisons between their accounting methods and the state's.

"I have no idea what that is based on," said Prest of state findings that Bloomington needed to shift $3.9 million to classroom expenses from other areas in order to hit the 70 percent mark.

Cutting administration costs

Administration costs were a special target for Pawlenty as a prospective source for more classroom money. Those funds include expenses for employees such as principals, assistant principals and curriculum directors.

While districts have been pruning administrative costs over the years, Pawlenty said it's not enough.

He said there are still "too many layers between the superintendents and the students."

Plus, he said, his plan provides a way to insure that districts are spending an additional $800 million allocated to them by the Legislature for this year and next directly on kids, not on administrators and other non-classroom expenses.

"Driving resources into the classroom is a high priority," he said. "It is an ingredient toward having a better school system." There are no penalties or sanctions associated with the plan. But Pawlenty said districts under the 70 percent threshold would have to submit a three-year plan to get to that level. He said the measure would be relatively painless. "Most districts are within striking distance of this goal already."

State figures show that 67 Minnesota school districts currently spend at least 70 percent of their funding at the classroom level. They showed that the average school district devoted slightly more than 69 percent to instructional costs.

Ironically, figures cited in a recent New York Times article showed that Minnesota ranked among the national leaders in the percentage of education dollars going to instruction.