Stakeholders examining education funding in the state are working on final recommendations to the governor. Thursday is the final meeting of South Dakota’s Blue Ribbon Task Force. Members met throughout the summer and fall to understand challenges related to K-12 education.
State Senator Deb Soholt is co-chair of the governor’s Blue Ribbon Task Force on education funding. She says task force members are considering all aspects of money in schools. Soholt says that includes teacher pay as it compares to surrounding states and their economic factors. For example, Minnesota teachers make more money, but they have to pay a state income tax.
Soholt says the panel finds that, on average, South Dakota teachers are $8,000 to $10,000 out of market.
“And certainly it’s more than just pay that brings somebody into education, but we are spending a lot of time looking at that slice of the pie, because we don’t want pay to be the barrier,” Soholt says. “So in order to move us from where we are to be competitive with our neighbors, we’re probably talking about something about infusing somewhere between $50 million to $70 million new dollars into our education system in order to accomplish that move.”
Soholt says task force members must set recommendations for Governor Dennis Daugaard on options for increasing teacher pay. The state senator says the group may not come to consensus, so the final report may include multiple ideas from different stakeholders.
Soholt says the Blue Ribbon Task Force is considering other funding options including recommendations for schools and potentially changing the method the state uses to assign dollars to 151 school districts.
“Our current funding formula is on a per-student allocation, or a PSA. And what we are looking to do is change our formula to be on a teacher/student ratio, which really helps us to get to some of the efficiencies of what is a reasonable classroom size for our teachers,” Soholt says.
Soholt says the Blue Ribbon Task Force is working to finish the report to Governor Dennis Daugaard as soon as possible, so he has time to consider the group’s findings ahead of his budget address less than six weeks away.
You can listen to the final meeting of the Blue Ribbon Task Force online until the discussion ends at about 430 p.m. central time. Visit this link to the audio and meeting materials.