we need your help - contact legislators

Let Our Minnesota Legislators Know:

  • It is fundamentally wrong for school districts that take care of students with the most needs to have less general education funds to pay for programs for all students. 

  • Due to the inequities in special education funding, school districts such as Waconia Public Schools that do a great job with special education, are forced to do more with less for all students in the district.

  • The new special education funding formula deeply impacted our district by increasing cross-subsidy expenses by 76% over the last 4-years and forced us into statutory operating debt (SOD).

  • In 2015, Waconia Public Schools was taking $687 per student from our general education funding to pay for mandated special education costs and, in 2019, those cross-subsidy expenses are estimated to be $1,210 per general education student. We need your help to get this corrected.

  • Our voters approved a $525 per student operating levy in November 2018. Funds generated by the new operating levy are now being used to help cover the ever-growing cross-subsidy when they were supposed to support general education programming.

  • Waconia Public Schools was forced to make $1.26 million in cuts to balance the budget.

  • More cuts are imminent in future budgets if something is not done.