← Election Series · Down-ballot coverage · Minnesota
Our call — vote NO
The measure
The Permanent School Fund Amendment is a legislatively referred constitutional amendment on Minnesota's November 3, 2026 ballot. The fund — built from state school lands — is currently governed by a hard rule: the principal "shall be perpetual and inviolate," and only net interest and dividends may be distributed to schools. The amendment would remove that language and replace it with a mandate to manage the fund to preserve its purchasing power over time, with distributions set by law. Contingent legislation would distribute 4.5% of the fund's three-year average value each year, effective July 1, 2027. The ballot title presents the change as increasing funding to school districts without raising income or property taxes.
What YES does
A yes vote ends the inviolate-principal rule and lets the fund pay out a fixed percentage of its total value — earnings and, in down years, principal itself.
What NO does
A no vote keeps the constitutional rule that the principal is never spent and only its earnings reach schools.
The math
No dollar fiscal estimate was published on the measure's Ballotpedia page. The published distribution formula is 4.5% of the three-year average fund value annually, per the contingent statute.
OUR CALL
Our call: NO.
"Perpetual and inviolate" is the whole point of a permanent fund: every generation of Minnesota schoolchildren gets the same inheritance. A percentage-of-value payout spends beyond earnings whenever returns run below the payout rate, quietly converting an endowment into a drawdown account. Current students gain a little; every future student loses a little, forever. Guardrails on spending other people's — including unborn taxpayers' — money are not obstacles. Vote no.
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Sources
- Ballotpedia — Minnesota Permanent School Fund Amendment measure page (accessed October 25, 2026)
- Ballotpedia — 2026 ballot measures — https://ballotpedia.org/2026_ballot_measures
Result pending. No verified call (Associated Press or official) as of November 4, 2026. This page will be updated when the race is called or certified. The original article above is unchanged.
AI-assisted article — but the sources are human, and the facts are very real.