• Education Works! Good education leads to good paying jobs and is the key ingredient in sustained economic development in our state.  This has been said so often that it may be an empty echo throughout the hallways at our Capitol in Pierre. Still, it's long past time to strongly make the case that we can no longer shift the responsibility of adequately funding  schools to local taxpayers through opt-outs and higher levies.  That trend may only be increased by activity in this Session.
• Some background may help explain school funding which is admittedly a complex issue. In 1997 we established a funding formula called the per-student allocation (PSA).  By law, the PSA should be raised by the rate of inflation or 3 percent, whichever is less. While it is "law" that's a relative term as we

do not always live up to the promise we have made to our schools.  In 2010-11 the formula was frozen and in 2011-12 there was an 8.6% cut. Following those drastic reductions, a report was released from the Associated School Boards of SD stating: "Recent education funding cuts have cost South Dakota 465 full-time jobs in education and school boards may not be finished cutting staff."  Important programs have been lost, class sizes have increased, and new teachers are harder than ever to

(Continued on page 3)