To the Editor:
Changing to even-year School Board elections has been discussed by prior ISD200 school boards, as recently as
late 2022 and 2023. The choice to add 1 more year to current board terms is the best fiscal choice, and I would
expect our school board to do what is fiscally best for the district, which is one of their duties.
The main reason for this was a change to Minnesota law shortly before 2005, shifting costs of odd-year board
elections from the counties to the districts. In 2005, 168 of the 331 Minnesota districts still held odd-year
elections. Of the 139 districts that have since moved to even-year elections, 90% made the change by adding 1
year to current board members’ terms. By 2023, only 29 districts still held odd-year elections. This year, 7 of those
29 districts are considering the change to even-numbered years, including Hastings. With this change, our next
elections will be in 2026 and 2028.
The other option would have been to hold another round of odd-year elections in 2025 and 2027, for 3-year terms,
costing the district about $30,000. This is NOT a good financial choice and would have been a waste of taxpayer
money. And if we are trying to SAVE money, why would we want to spend an extra $30,000 unnecessarily???
Board members received many emails from the public. About 50% of these opinions were in favor of extending
the terms for the current board by one year. During the discussion at the June 26 meeting, ALL board members
were asked for and gave their opinions. ALL were respectfully listened to and discussed before the vote was
taken, something that often seemed not the case under the previous board.
Teddi Tri
Hastings HS Grad
Citizen of ISD200