Rep. John Persell (DFL-Bemidji) presented a bill last week to cover the cost of pupil transportation for geographically large districts.
Transportation sparsity revenue provides additional revenue to school districts based on indexes formed by measuring each districts’ geographic sparsity (pupils per square mile) calculated a few different ways and totals about $64 million per year.
This bill creates two adjustment to the formula: the first for the St. Louis County school district; and the second for the few very large geographic districts, including Bemidji and Park Rapids, that have too many students to qualify for sparsity revenue. The total adjustments are estimated to cost about $1.5 million per year.
The House Education Finance Committee heard HF1389 reviewed the bill this week and laid it over for possible inclusion in the education omnibus bill.
The companion bill, SF741, sponsored by Sen. Tom Saxhaug (DFL-Grand Rapids), has not been scheduled for a hearing in the other chamber at this time.