By Doug Barrett
The North Dakota Senate has approved the bill that funds K-12 schools.
That includes language on what school districts are to do with the increased state funding.
The Senate is proposing a one percent increase in per-pupil payments in each year of the upcoming biennium. This, as school districts will be receiving federal money due to the COVID-19 pandemic. But comes with strings attached.
Grand Forks Republican Senator Ray Holmberg chairs the Appropriations Committee, and also chaired the K-12 subcommittee. He says that subcommittee – which also included Bismarck Republican Senator Nicole Poolman and Senate Minority Leader Joan Heckaman of New Rockford – approved language that tells local districts 70 percent of the new state money has to be spent on teacher compensation. “In schools education takes place in the classroom and that’s where we want to focus North Dakota money.”
The state Senate has approved the bill that funds K-12 schools.
That includes new language on what school districts are to do with the increased state funding.
The Senate is proposing a one percent increase in per-pupil payments in each year of the upcoming biennium. This, as school districts will be receiving federal money due to the COVID-19 pandemic. But that federal money comes with strings attached. In schools, education takes place in the classroom, said Appropriations Committee chairman Sen. Ray Holmberg (R-Grand Forks), who also chaired the subcommittee. That s where we want to focus North Dakota money.
That subcommittee – which also included Sen. Nicole Poolman (R-Bismarck) and Senate Minority Leader Joan Heckaman (D-New Rockford) – approved the language. Specifically, the language said 70 percent of the new state money must be spent on compensation for non-administrators.
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Grand Forks senators split on the bill 2-2, with Sens. Ray Holmberg and Scott Meyer, both Republicans, voting in favor of the bill. Sen. JoNell Bakke, a Democrat, voted against the bill, as did Republican Sen. Curt Kreun. I struggled with this bill, to be quite honest when you start dealing with personal liberty and addressing a pandemic,” Meyer said. But he ultimately supported the bill because he felt it still left cities, counties and the like with local control.
Holmberg’s reasoning was similar. He said it would have been an “easy no-vote” if the bill had been kept in its broad form passed by the House, which would have banned even local groups from instituting mask mandates. But he said he’s glad to see local control kept intact.
At the Legislature: individual rights vs. social action But issues are not always one or the other
Dylan Sherman
BISMARCK A divergence of vision on how best to protect individual rights while addressing societal issues has sometimes marked the 2021 North Dakota legislative session, but the difference between the two aims is not always clear.
Legislators in North Dakota have argued one way or the other this session, on whether bills would affect individual or social rights, for better or worse.
Affordable health care is an area where the legislature felt that while some bills may be beneficial, they could infringe on personal rights. Two health care bills that failed include a paid family leave study and an affordable insulin bill.