In good news, Worthington voters finally overcame some strong and self-destructive anti-immigrant sentiment to approve spending $38.7 million to build the classroom space necessary to teach their burgeoning youth population:
Independent School District 518’s six-year streak of failed building referendums came to an end Tuesday.
Worthington school district residents approved all three of the district’s referendum questions. Passage of all three questions means the district gave the green light for the district to sell up to $33.7 million in general obligation bonds to construct a new intermediate school designed to educate 900 third-, fourth- and fifth-grade students along North Crailsheim Road. The district is committing $5 million from its general fund to account for the estimated $38.7 million project.
…Voter turnout was just above 50% of the number of registered District 518 voters. There are 6,578 total registered voters residing in District 518.
According to the Nobles County Auditor-Treasurer’s Office, 17% of the district’s total registered voters had cast an absentee ballot as of late Tuesday morning [Alyssa Sobotka, “District 518 Voters Approve All Three Referendum Questions,” Worthington Globe, 2019.11.05].
The Minnesota Rural Education reports that Worthington was part of a statewide surge in voter approval of more spending on education. Voters in 42 Minnesota school districts approved spending measures, an 84% passage rate that MREA says is the largest in state history.
It’s good to see more Minnesotans recognizing that they can act as a community through government to improve their schools and their futures.
50% is good in an off off year election. Folks weren’t liking the publicity they’d been getting as anti immigrant, anti children and regressive. That kind of thing is very bad for business.
Minnesotans always do the right thing and vote for the betterment of society.
As the late great Paul Wellstone once said ‘politics is about the improvement of people’s lives’ ‘we all do better when we all do better’.
Proud of the state I live in, and South Dakotans could learn a lot from MN about inclusiveness, equality and justice. :)
Jenny you think so they love the trumpster in our state hard to beleive.
Strib columnist Jennifer Brooks wrote a column about how Worthington got these referendums passed. It was a district wide effort by a wide variety of people. Worthington wasn’t the only district to be successful. In Minnesota education is highly valued because it leads directly to a more successful population.
“School levies passed all over the state this week, including in 42 rural Minnesota school districts where a property tax increase is a big ask. It’s an even bigger ask this year, when the farmers who shoulder a big share of the tax burden are being squeezed by trade wars, sagging prices and terrible weather.
“The Minnesota Rural Education Association estimates that more than 80% of the rural school bond or operating levies on the ballot this week passed. That’s thanks in part to the state’s new Ag2School tax credit, which offsets a big chunk of the tax burden our school funding system tends to dump on farmers.”
Minnesota Department of Education
“First enacted in 2017 for taxes payable 2018, the school building bond agricultural credit applies to farmland excluding the house, garage and one acre, and managed forestland. The credit equaled 40 percent of the qualifying property’s net tax capacity multiplied by the school debt tax rate. The school debt tax rate is the sum of all Fund 7 debt service levies divided by the taxable net tax capacity of all property in the school district.
“Similar to other property tax credits, county auditors will determine the tax reductions after levy certifications, and send them to the Minnesota Department of Revenue. Revenue will review the credit as part of the abstract of tax lists and certify the tax reductions to the commissioner of education for payment of the reimbursement to school districts. The annual appropriation will be open. When budgeting for fiscal year 2021 and later, please keep in mind that the property tax revenue in Fund 7 will be less than the certified levy by the amount of the school building bond agricultural credit and other state paid credits.”
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The police 👮 academies of this country need to be trained in having some compassion for people of color instead of feeling the need to use deadly and excessive force on them all the time. I didn’t know Worthington had such a history of racism and corruption in its police department.
Get a grip, Police departments, get a grip. Quit terrorizing people that don’t look like you.
I think it’s kind of cute how rural folks have the hardest time supporting increases in education funding for their own kids, because they don’t want to offer any education nor opportunity to immigrants.
It’s so stupid, it adorable.
Debbo, if I understand that new tax credit right, the state is shifting the tax burden from ag-land owners to non-ag owners, right? Did Worthington’s vote represent less a waning of xenophobia and more just enough farmers seeing their tax bill stay below their cranky threshold?
I don’t know Cory. This program was mentioned in story so the writers must have felt it played a role.
The recent National Geographic Amelia Earhart special contains three photos of Amelia taken in Worthington — without mentioning their location.
Her sister Murial’s book “My Couragous Sister” claims the best days of Amelia’s life — alchoholic father and all — were her summers in Worthington.
Look what has happened to Amelia Earhart’s summer vacation home.
A few locals, along with natives on the island of Saipan have been trying to rescue Amelia from the Orwelian memory hole — with an appropiate monument.
There is another white house intern by the name of David Finlayson.
He overheard a discussion in the Oval office in July of 1944 in which FDR ordered the distruction of Amelia Earhart airplane on the island of Siapan. This story is can be found on p201 of Mike Campbell’s book.
thanks,
Jerry
[Good night, Jerry27—do you come here just to give your false conspiracy theories more Google Juice? Do you ever comment on the actual topic? Why do you find reality so distasteful that you have to concoct your own fantasy world? Are there not sufficient policy debates you could conduct to impugn the merits of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Presidency, or is discussing actual policy too hard for you?]