Superintendents 'get to the heart of learning'

Several area superintendents attended the Brainerd School District's finance committee meeting Thursday, but they weren't there to hear about the district's annual audit.

Brad Lundell, executive director of Schools for Equity in Education, a consortium of 57 school districts, spoke at Thursday's committee meeting.

P.S. Minnesota, a coalition of statewide education organizations, including SEE, and parent organizations released the results of a public education cost study last week confirming SEE's first study that found public education in the state is underfunded by more than $1 billion.

Lundell said that, in the past, educational organizations in the state have had a tendency to allow state lawmakers to "divide and conquer," pitting one group against another when it came to issues of funding. Now, many of these groups are working together under P.S. Minnesota to "get to the heart of learning" and adequately fund public schools, he said.

The study is a continuation of the work started by Gov. Tim Pawlenty's Education Funding Reform Task Force that made several key recommendations in June 2004 but stopped short of estimating how much it would cost to educate students to the state and national standards.

"There's no magic bullet here," Lundell said.

Lundell said now is the time to redo the property tax system to more fairly fund all schools, pointing out that school districts like Pequot Lakes have huge levels of property wealth, but it means the district receives less funding from the state funding formula as a result. He pointed out that transportation and special education costs have dramatically increased and have an impact on districts already underfunded in its special education and general education systems.

"I think we're primed this year to do some big changes," Lundell said about the next legislative session. "We need to look at the world realistically and get the Legislature to look at it realistically, too."

Superintendents and business managers who attended Thursday's committee meeting included those from Aitkin, Crosby-Ironton, Pequot Lakes, Pierz, Pillager and Pine River-Backus school districts. The director from the Paul Bunyan Education Cooperative also attended.

In finance committee action, the Brainerd School Board approved the 2005-06 audit report and the 2005-06 student activities audit report as presented Thursday by Tom Koop and Sara Lusignan of LarsonAllen, a certified public accounting and consulting firm. According to the audit report, as of June 30, the district had general revenues of $62.3 million and general expenditures of $65.2 million with $3.04 million in its general unreserved fund balance, or 4.65 percent of the total general fund expenditures. The previous year, the district's unreserved fund balance was $5.26 million or 8.37 percent.

JODIE TWEED can be reached at jodie.tweed@brainerddispatch.com or 855-5858.