This is a report to the members of the Minnesota Association of School Administrators (MASA) for Monday, April 30th. It provides information on the beginning of the 'end game' of the legislative session.
By Charlie Kyte 
The podcast is 6 1/2 minutes long and can be accessed by clicking the audio bar 2 times.
Three (3) weeks to go in the session
The end game of the session is just beginning. It is unclear what will actually happen and we sense that the main players are both trying to talk tough and be accommodating at the same time. There are also many other demands on the resources of the State and there is no solid guarantee that K-12 Education will come away with adequate funding.
The disparity between what is needed and what is available
K-12 Education needs a minimum of $800 million to have minimally adequate funding. This amount would provide enough to eliminate the pro-ration of the states special education funding and provide 3% each year on the basic formulas. The problem is that there is about $500 million available without some kind of revenue enhancement. This is enough to provide the special education funding plus about 1% each year on the formulas. In addition the Senate, House and Governor each have some appetite for other spending that would use up some of the already scarce resourses.
MASA meets with leadership
Over the past week I have had the opportunity to meet with the key leaders. In some cases we met as a group of education lobbyists and in other cases I was able to meet individually. There were meetings with Representative Greiling-head of Representatives on the Conference Committee and Senator Taryl Clark-head of the Senators on the conference committee. In addition I met with the Governor and with Senator Pogemiller. Wherever I had the chance, I stressed that we needed $800 million in permanent funding and that it needed to be relatively evenly spread across the districts in the state.
Leadership letter
MASA wrote a letter to the top leaders----Governor Pawlenty, Senator Pogemiller and Speaker of the House Margaret Kelliher-Anderson----stressing the main points articulated above and our willingness to support a number of meaningful improvements in our systems if the basic funding could be provided. We copied the letter to the education chairs and to the Commissioners.
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