What if Minnesota schools could get more funding without your taxes increasing by even a single cent?Yes, it sounds too good to be true. But a proposal along those lines will be on ballots this fall.With bipartisan backing from the Legislature, voters will be asked if the state constitution should be amended so that schools would receive more support from a fund that has been growing since Minnesota’s early statehood.Established in 1858, the Permanent School Fund provides annual disbursements to every public school district in the state. The fund grew to $2.3 billion as of 2025. As big as that figure is, Minnesota’s constitution caps how much schools can draw from the fund. So lawmakers and school groups are campaigning to amend the constitution in order to free up additional funding.
Why do schools need more Permanent School Funds? The state’s distribution of these funds has remained essentially the same since the program’s inception, said Sen. Mary Kunesh, DFL-New Brighton. A former educator in her pre-Legislature life, Kunesh carried the constitutional amendment proposal through the Senate. “I think everybody recognizes the need for additional funding for public schools, and this is one way to do it without putting an additional burden on our taxpayers,” she said.Her companion bill author in the House, Rep. Spencer Igo, R-Wabana Township, agrees. Voting yes in November neither raises property taxes nor asks local residents to approve a levy or referendum, he said.
