The Minnesota Senate approved a $19.7 billion early education and school funding proposal Wednesday, finalizing the parameters for end-of-session negotiations with Democrats over how much to spend on the state’s school districts.
The Senate bill, which passed on a largely party-line vote, would increase state support for local school districts by $900 million, or roughly 5%, over the next two years. Per-pupil spending would go up by a half percent each year.
The plan in the Republican-controlled Senate comes in hundreds of millions of dollars below the budgets advanced by Democratic Gov. Tim Walz and DFL lawmakers in the state House. Some school districts and administrators have raised concerns about the Senate’s funding level, saying it’s insufficient given the growing size and needs of their student populations.
