The Sioux Falls Argus Leader has an article today where the Superintendent of the Sioux Falls School District is disappointed in Governor Rhoden’s proposal of 0% for education this year:
Sioux Falls School District Superintendent Jamie Nold told the Argus Leader shortly after Rhoden’s address that the way to be strong, to be safe and to be free, as Rhoden referenced throughout his address, is through education.
and..
Nold said there are many one-time expenditures in Rhoden’s budget that could go toward teacher salaries and education funding. He added he hoped people would favor investing in youth rather than investing in one-time projects.
He also criticized Rhoden’s proposal to increase the amount saved for reserves, or the rainy day fund, from 10% of the overall budget to 12.5%, and said those dollars could be used for education funding.
and..
Nold reiterated that he and other public education supporters would like to be part of legislative conversations, to help people see the work they’re doing and to invite elected officials to visit the schools.
This is not likely to be a positive year for education aside from the tough funding year; especially considering those who want to strip public schools of funding to send them to private entities such as religious schools via a voucher program.
Stay tuned.
The left and the right are both slightly unhappy with the Governor’s budget address.
That means he nailed it.
Good job, Larry. Less is more.
But wait we’ll FIND money for home schoolers and private schools. Good grief!
You know, Schools are never satisfied with what they are given. It is never enough!
Let’s talk about increases across the State Budget as reported by Rhoden yesterday. Since 2020, K-12 education spending rose 29%. Inflation ran 21-26 % during that time frame depending on which indices you look at. During that same time period, Higher Education received a 41% increase. No one ever talks about higher ed as it comes from the General Fund and not property taxes. K-12 consistently gets beat up because it is heavily funded by property tax owners. Our K-12 spending is near last in the nation in both per pupil spending and the percentage of taxpayer income spend on K-12. I think most public schools would just be satisfied with trying to keep up with inflation and our neighboring states.
Good numbers that you share and It’s worth mentioning:
Sales Tax is about 1.5B of 2.5B in receipts for the State for the General Fund (READ: what we tax ourselves, our neighbors, our guests on sales & use)
Education budget is 790Million, of which 725Million goes into the State Aid to Education Formula or what is sent to schools. Those budget dollars are generated from things like Sales & Use Tax as well as Lottery/Gaming. (185Million from Lottery/Gaming).
Property Tax/ Local Tax pay for about 40% of School Need. The rest comes from the General Fund.
Nold had to say ‘something’. One issue is whenever money goes to education, it ends up in increases for the administrators, not the teachers.
Ugh. Pretty sure that could not be farther from the truth. The administrators don’t just give themselves raises.
This isn’t happening in the majority of the rural districts. Our school district forewent giving Admin a raise last year and the Teachers received 4% raises.
Maybe, just maybe, our legislature should be looking at ways to expand our economy, thereby bringing in more revenue, instead of calling everything a boondoggle and shutting our state down for any kind of development. But, hey, lets get rid of TIF’s because they take peopels houses and give big companies tax dollars from hard working South Dakotan’s……..
The short sightedness of our current legislature is sickening. If they stuck their arm out, they couldnt see their hand at the end of it.