Conference committee adopts House File 3900 language to send school‑trust amendment to voters

Representative Spencer Igoe, chair of the conference committee and chief author of House File 3,900, opened the meeting and led a nonpartisan staff walkthrough of the bill’s language, which would amend the Minnesota Constitution to change how the Permanent School Trust Fund’s distributions are calculated.

House research described the core change: instead of distributing the interest and dividends earned annually, the amendment would set a fixed annual distribution equal to 4.5 percent of the fund’s value, measured as the average over the previous three fiscal years. The proposal assigns the Commissioner of Management and Budget the responsibility to determine and transfer the distributable amount, and directs that the Department of Education administer the portion allocated to school districts. The ballot question language would be submitted to voters as a yes/no question and would require a simple majority of those voting to pass.

Committee members debated whether statutory authority to set the 4.5…