Minn. Districts Overextended on Contracts, Officials Say

By Cheryl Gamble

Minnesota school districts using one-time state funds to pay for teacher-salary increases may find themselves in a bind when the state's two-year budget cycle ends, officials warned recently.

School boards' contract settlements with teachers' unions could leave a $186 million gap in school funding at the end of the current biennium, according to the commissioners of three state agencies, who argued that districts are misappropriating the state's school-budget increase.

"School districts knew on the day they signed these contract agreements that they would have to make cuts immediately in other areas to meet these obligations," Laura M. King, the commissioner of the department of finance, said in a...