Press Conference - Senator Roger Chamberlain on Latest Education Budget Offer

Senate Education Chair Roger Chamberlain, R-Lino Lakes, called a press conference Monday, June 7, to highlight the most recent offer presented to House education leaders and Governor Tim Walz’s office for the state’s next two-year education spending plan.

Chamberlain said that negotiations with the DFL education chairs had reached “a bit of an impasse” last week. In response, he offered a proposal that he called “significant, simple and direct” and said would require that both sides give up substantial items.

Under the Senate’s most recent proposal, the educational funding formula would increase by three percent in 2022 and one-and-a-half percent the following year. According to Chamberlain, the formula change would result in the largest increase in education spending in fifteen years. The plan also removes many of the mandates asked for by the House. “This is what the educators have asked for. It’s a compromise, a significant compromise, and gives them what they’ve asked for – money and no mandates, which multiplies the impact of the money and local control,” he said.

Additionally, the offer includes measures that have achieved bipartisan support, like increasing the number of teachers of color, enhancing literacy, improving digital wellbeing and preventing suicide.