The central focus of last Tuesday night’s School Board meeting was the proposed budget for 2026 and the truth in taxation presentation. Regarding the school budget, money for schools comes primarily from the state. Funding also comes from local fees and through property taxes paid by local taxpayers. Additional money comes from the federal government, but the state of Minnesota is the largest source of funding for our schools. 65% of school funding comes from the state, 19% comes from property tax revenues, 5% comes from the federal government, and 11% comes from other sources like grants and other forms of financial aid.
One of the challenges that school districts all over the state are facing is the fact that inflation is outpacing the basic funding formula allowances, per pupil. Under current budgetary constraints $7,652 will be spent to educate each public school student in the district during the 2026 term. If the funding formula kept up with inflation, there would be around an additional $1,453 spent on each student this year.
Fiscal conservatives will point out that spending more money per student doesn’t guarantee better outcomes, and while that is true, having schools that are adequately funded does mean that there is money to hire more teachers, money to offer a wider variety of classes (think Advanced Placement, Technical Ed, STEM, etc). There would also be money to hire more support staff and mental health professionals, and money to provide for smaller class sizes. Hands down, those things do mean better educational outcomes for kids.
Operating expenditures for 2026 are projected at 41% of total revenue going toward regular instruction, 22% going toward special education, 8% for district and school administration, 3% for vocational education, 4% for student transportation, 4% for instructional support services, 6% for pupil support services, 8% for operations and maintenance and 3% for district support services and other operating programs.
The state of Minnesota limits the local property tax levy by statutorily defined formulas. Levy formulas are driven by pupil counts, specific eligible expenditure types, population, voter authorization, and district-wide property valuations. The proposed tax levy for 2026 is $4,851,642. This is down from the 2025 levy, which was set at $5,011,565.
Taxpayers will receive their tax statement from the county in March for taxes payable in 2026. Folks should be reminded that property values do not rise uniformly across all properties. Agricultural and seasonal recreation lands are exempt from the levy. District Superintendent Gina Kleive pointed out that taxes paid by recreational and agricultural land owners could perhaps be shifted so that those monies came to the school district rather than going to the State for redistribution elsewhere. The board voted to approve the proposed 2026 budget and levy. These documents are available for public inspection at the district office.
The next school board meeting is scheduled for January 13th at 6:00 PM at Two Harbors High School.
