On Wednesday, Ramsey County Judge Kathleen Gearin ruled which services will stay open during a government shutdown.  The judge sympathized with the many people whose lives will be negatively impacted by a shutdown.  Yet, she made it clear that the court's responsibility is to ensure that critical core functions as prescribed in the Minnesota Constitution were available to the people.  It is the responsibility of the governor and the legislature to fund all other important and reasonable government programs.   To see the entire court ruling followed by the governor's recommendations, click here.

 The judge largely agreed with the governor's fairly broad recommendations for a government shutdown with just a few deviations.  Most notable to education supporters was the determination that payments to K-12 schools were a critical core function.  Two points in the fact finding section of the orders explains the judge's rational for her ruling on education funding:

21.  The Minnesota Constitution requires that the state provide a "general and uniform system of public schools."  Min. Const. article XIII, section 1.  This requires that the state finance an "adequate" level of education that is uniformly available to all students.  This constitutional provision makes funding education a critical core function of government. 

39.  The court agrees with the position of the League of Minnesota Cities, the coalition of Greater Minnesota Cities, and the City of St. Paul regarding Local Government Aid legislation.  These funds have already been lawfully appropriated and should be paid on schedule.   This is also true regarding previously lawfully appropriated payments to School Districts.

From this ruling, school districts will continue to receive payments towards about 80% of their total funding.  Also, since the 70% current year/30% following aid payment shift was only put into law for one year, districts will receive funding at the previous 90/10 levels.    

See Brad's Blog for more information and detail.