As Republicans and the governor seek agreement on the largest segment of the budget, K-12 education, it appears even their common ground is a bit rocky.
Case in point: An area of education spending known as "compensatory revenue."
In his letter vetoing the Republican K-12 budget, Dayton criticized the bill's "freezing of compensatory revenue." The state doles out that money, sometimes more than $400 million a year, based on the number of poor students in each school district.
But there's one problem. Dayton and the Republicans both want spend the same amount on compensatory revenue over the next two years. Each side proposes leaving it at levels set in current law.
Senate Republicans once proposed freezing compensatory revenue, but that provision was eliminated when lawmakers crafted the final version of the K-12 bill (known as the "conference report").
What Republicans did instead was separate the compensatory revenue from the basic per-pupil formula allowance. That means future Legislatures will have to specifically increase the compensatory revenue formula, rather than just boosting the basic formula.
Is that a freeze?
"How on God's green earth do you argue that it's a freeze?" said Rep. Pat Garofalo, R-Farmington, the Republican sponsor of the bill. He noted that not only have Dayton and the GOP both left the formula at current law levels, but spending will also increase automatically if there are more poor students.
