Voters support most Minn. school districts' requests for more tax dollars

Minnesota voters overwhelmingly proved Tuesday they were willing to give school districts additional tax dollars to pay for more teachers, classroom space and better technology.

Thirty school districts with funding requests on the ballot were successful, and many included significant money for construction projects. Voters in nine school districts rejected referendum requests.

Among Tuesday's big winners: Eden Prairie Public Schools, where voters renewed an expiring operating levy and prevented $10 million in cuts; Elk River Area School District, which persuaded voters to approve $98 million for new construction, and Robbinsdale Area Schools, which locked up approval for its first levy to pay exclusively for new technology.

"We're already one of Minnesota's best school districts, and the election results put us in a position to meet the needs of our growing and thriving communities," Elk River Superintendent Mark Bezek said.

Greg Abbott, spokesman for the Minnesota School Boards Association, said most of the referendum requests that failed were in the southwest corner of the state. He could not pinpoint a reason voters rejected those levies.

More than a dozen districts were seeking additional money for construction projects. School officials have cited growing enrollment — particularly at the elementary level — as the primary reason behind many of those requests.

That was certainly the case for Elk River Area Schools, which successfully convinced voters to approve the most expensive construction project on Tuesday's ballot.

Overcrowding and projected future enrollment increases framed much of the political debate. There are five schools in the district that are over capacity, and enrollment projections are only expected to increase.

Another metro-area school district that approved additional tax money was Waconia. Voters there signed off on a $75 million project that includes remodeling the middle school and high school and building a new elementary school.

Instead of constructing new buildings, some school districts asked voters to help them take care of existing facilities.

In Columbia Heights, voters approved the school district's levy request and also a capital projects levy that will pay for several building maintenance projects, such as repairing or replacing roofs, doors, windows, furnaces and boilers.

Many of the district's buildings are over 50 years old and in dire need of repair, school officials have said.

For the first time, the Robbinsdale school district will have a dedicated source of funding to pay for new technology that will allow teachers to get instant feedback on quizzes, provide devices for all students in grades 5-12 and add whiteboards, among other things. Only a handful of metro area schools do not have a technology levy.

Robbinsdale school leaders said they were happy to not be on that list anymore.

"The addition of a technology levy will provide a stable source of funding" for their technology plan, said Superintendent Aldo Sicoli.

Also approving tech levy requests were voters in Westonka, St. Anthony-New Brighton and the West St. Paul-Mendota Heights-Eagan school districts.