Grand Forks legislators: Legislature may assume more education costs, likely to pass school choice

Nov. 21—GRAND FORKS — Property tax reform in the next legislative session could shift more responsibility for education costs to the state, according to some Grand Forks-area legislators, while others expect some kind of school choice measure to pass.

Six area legislators joined members of Grand Forks Public Schools government affairs committee on Thursday to discuss the school district’s policy priorities for the next biennium and offer their own insight into the forthcoming legislative session.

School Board members

established the new committee earlier this year

in a bid to lobby lawmakers on issues like state spending on public schools.

District 17 Rep. Mark Sanford said he expected property tax reform to be a principal driver in the Legislature next year and discussed the prospect of a bill that would shift a significant portion of education costs currently paid by local property taxes to the state.

District 43 Rep. Eric Murphy expressed concern about shifting that responsibility away from local schools, saying it could lead to Bismarck asserting more control over how schools operate and how they teach.

“You guys know your students. We don’t know your students in Bismarck,” Murphy said.

Murphy served on the Legislature’s education committee last year, while Sanford is part of the interim committee’s school funding task force. Both men are Republicans.

Superintendent Terry Brenner appeared to express support for shifting funding responsibility away from the schools, though.

“There’s a good recognition and recommendation that the state should do more to pay,” Brenner said.

Additional state aid for public schools, particularly for multilingual and special education programs, is one of the school district’s leading priorities.

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According to Murphy, however, the tax reform bill would only replace existing local funding for schools; there’s also talk of capping the amount political subdivisions can levy.

House Minority Leader Zac Ista, a Democrat, indicated plans to push for a no-cost school meal plan for all students,

expanding on a successful effort last year to provide free meals to families

with incomes at 200% or less of the federal poverty level. (That’s around $62,400 for a family of four, as of 2024.)

Funding to expand no-cost school meals in 2023 is only funded through the biennium, and will need to be renewed or replaced with a more expansive measure.

Ista said he expects polling to be released next week showing widespread support in North Dakota for the state to be more involved in paying for students’ meals.

Both legislators and school officials say some kind of school choice legislation is expected to pass into law this coming session.

A school choice task force,

which has been criticized for violating open meetings laws,

has been meeting during the interim session to discuss restructuring funding for K-12 education.

“School choice isn’t going away, that’s the bottom line,” Murphy said. “Like it or don’t like it, it’s the darling of a certain section of the Republican Party.”

Murphy opposes sending public funding to private schools, but said he is working on a bill that would give parents of students with individualized education plans to public charter schools.

North Dakota does not currently have public charter schools, according to the Navigate School Choice Network.

Committee chair Amber Flynn emphasized the need for state spending on multilingual programs in particular, characterizing it as a workforce issue.

“When a city like Grand Forks has a workforce influx and our population of ML students increases, that increases the need for the number of staff and professionals to help those new students integrate,” she said.

Grand Forks Public Schools saw its population of multilingual students more than double over the last year, which has challenged the district’s existing resources.

She also spoke of the need for state support for pre-K funding, pointing to challenges faced by military families in the Grand Forks Air Force Base District in particular.

District 43 Sen. Jeff Barta, District 18 Rep. Nels Christianson, and District 17 Sen. Mark Sickler also participated in Thursday’s meeting.

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