County gives $3 million to schools
By Neal A. Shipman
Farmer Editor
Christmas came in July for school districts in McKenzie County with the McKenzie County Commissioners playing Santa Claus.
During their July 2 meeting, the commissioners decided to split an additional $3 million between the six school districts in the county from the county’s Bankhead-Jones funds. Originally the county had budgeted just over $1 million in those funds between the school districts, but when the county suddenly received a huge federal payment, the commissioners decided to share the wealth.
“We received $12 million in Bankhead-Jones payments this year,” stated Commissioner Doug Nordby. “Which is significantly higher than the $4 million that we had budgeted to receive.”
Receiving the lion’s share of the increase in funding was the McKenzie County Public School District No. 1 that saw its Bankhead-Jones funding from the county increase by an additional $2,387,838 from $817,600 to just over $3.2 million for 2019, while Alexander School District No. 2 saw its funding increase from $259,344 to $$348,144.
The county uses a formula based on each school district’s valuation and levy per pupil to determine past distribution of Bankhead-Jones funds to the school districts.
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