An amendment that would increase the amount paid to schools across Minnesota through the Permanent School Fund is on the ballot this November.
The Permanent School Fund was established in 1858 and is funded by rents and royalties from over 2.5 million acres of school trust lands across the state, which are invested by the State Board of Investment. The fund currently allocates about 2 to 2.5 percent annually to school districts, which averaged around $68 per pupil per district in 2025. The amendment, which was authored by Rep. Spencer Igo (R) from District 7A and approved with bipartisan support in the House and Senate, would increase the annual distribution to 4.5 percent of full market value, averaging around $101 per pupil per district.
Paul Peltier chairs the Vote Yes for Minnesota Students Committee and spoke with KROX about the impact of this amendment on school districts statewide. He explains that the increase in fund allocation will come from interest earned by the fund, without depleting its principal, and that it does not cost taxpayers anything. “The fund is set up in the constitution to only distribute interest and dividends, but not capital gains,” explained Peltier. “And as the fund was able to be diversified and invest in things like the stock market, the constitution needed to keep up. And so that’s one of the reasons for this amendment: is to modernize the way we’re distributing the money, even though the way we’ve invested it has been modernized for a really long time.”
Peltier applauded the work of the state House and Senate for coming together to put this amendment on the ballot and acknowledged that the process to get to this point has been years in the making. “This process took probably 18 months,” Peltier said. “There was a task force that made a recommendation to the legislature, and after studying this for roughly a year and a half, we brought in State Board of Investment folks. We brought in Minnesota Department of Education folks, and we made a recommendation to the legislature to say, ‘Hey, you should take a look at this and modernize it because we’re leaving money on the table for kids that are in classrooms now, and in areas where they have declining enrollment, it’s important to maximize the use of the fund while keeping it perpetual as a resource forever.’”
Crookston Public Schools Superintendent Todd Selk estimates that the district would receive an additional $37,000 per year if the amendment is approved by voters, and he appreciates that the funds received can be used for any operating expenses by the district, which gives school boards and administrators the freedom to use this money for areas like personnel or facility maintenance. “Unfortunately, with school funding, a lot of times there are ties put on the funding that we get,” explained Selk. “It’s categorical. It has to go towards this, or it has to go towards that. This would have no category. It would be spending that we could make our local decision, and always as a local school board and local administration, we believe that that is the best kind of funding for us because our needs in Crookston certainly could be different than the needs of our neighbors.”
East Grand Forks Superintendent Kevin Grover shared those sentiments, adding that this would be a significant commitment to modernize the fund allocation calculation and provide more funding to the schools without raising taxes or depleting the fund. “That is significant money,” said Grover. “That’s a lot of programming. I mean, it doesn’t solve if you have a million dollar hole by any means, and it’s not going to fix any districts financial situation, but it definitely helps. And again, it won’t deplete the fund. It’s going to go up from about 2.5 to 4.5 percent. It’ll use a three-year average, so you know it’ll fluctuate a little bit, but they estimate, I believe, between 7 and 8 percent has been the return over time, and that’s how it’s grown from, I think it was 15 years ago, was roughly $667 million in that fund. It’s over $2.2 billion now. That’s awesome, but let’s use a little bit more of it for schools in this day and age.”
Peltier reminds voters that leaving the amendment vote blank on the ballot would count as a no vote, so voting on this issue either way is important.
Minnesota residents can vote early now at their local or county election office or vote on Election Day, Tuesday, November 3, from 7:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.
