Grand Meadow school superintendent Joseph Brown Sr. told legislators Wednesday he’s riding a “legislative yo-yo,” when the subject of wind energy production tax revenues for school districts is discussed.

“Local superintendents need some legislative stability,” Brown said.

“We need to count on your word that when you pass legislation, you will maintain this legislation for at least a generation of school students,” he said.

Otherwise, the superintendent said, “I sometimes feel as though I am taking a ride on a legislative yo-yo.”

Brown testified Wednesday at the State Capitol before State Rep. Mindy Greiling, K-12 Education Finance Division chair, and committee members.

Grand Meadow and other rural Minnesota school districts, where wind energy farms are located, were elated when they were included in a formula that shared Wind Energy Act tax revenues with counties, township and school districts.

After only one year enjoying the windfall, Gov. Tim Pawlenty changed the formula by calling for the school districts to lose some of their state aid funding if they collected wind energy production tax revenues.

The “Now you see it, now you don’t” legislative chicanery upset Brown, who quickly became a spokesman asking for a change back to the original Wind Energy Tax provisions.

On Wednesday, he spoke in support of House File 79, which would accomplish that. The bill was introduced by State Rep. Robin Brown (DFL-District 27A), who is superintendent Brown’s wife.

“The effect of this corrective bill is to restore the legislative promise that was made to our local landowners and school districts in rural Minnesota in 2002 by providing additional revenue earned through the wind energy production tax under chapter 272.029,” the superintendent told the committee.

“The chapter was originally passed in 2002 and amended in 2005,” he said. “As amended in 2005, in lieu of paying any property taxes, wind turbines are assessed a wind energy production tax at the rate of .12 cents per kilowatt-hour of electricity produced by the system.”

In 2007, the omnibus education act, was passed, which reduced the amount of state aid to schools that is generated by the wind energy production tax. “In other words,” Brown said, “school district and local residents that were promised additional revenue for their schools will now have this revenue taken away by an equal amount through the reduction of state aid to schools.”

“This may be the first time that local taxes paid in lieu of property taxes was taken by the state of Minnesota and kept,” he said.

Last year, a bipartisan effort was made to restore the commitment, but was removed in the tax conference committee in the last hours of the 2008 legislative session.

This action infuriated Brown.

“Revenues collected from these wind turbines were to be distributed to local taxing jurisdictions as follows:

80 percent to counties;

14 percent to cities and townships;

6 percent to school districts.

In 2008, the Wind Energy Production Tax generated $4,287,227 in taxes payable in 2009. This represents 17 counties and 40 school districts, according to Brown’s explanation.

The amount of additional revenue generated per school district ranges from a low of $6.54 to a high of $55,912.02.

The Grand Meadow school district would have received $29,374.20 this year, according to Brown.

Losing the wind energy revenues was devastating to the Grand Meadow school district.

“In 2005, our school board made the decision to require four years of math and four years of science for our graduating class of 2010 (this year’s juniors),” Brown testified. “They were counting on this additional revenue to pay for one additional math/science teacher to teach these additional classes.”

That didn’t happen.

Not only are school districts suffering, but so are landowners.

“Our resident land owners are upset with the legislative change because they were promised that if they agreed to install these large wind turbines on their farm land, that this would generate additional tax revenue for their county, their township and their local rural public school,” Brown said. “The fact that this would raise additional revenue for local public schools was a real selling point in agreeing to sign a long-term lease for the installation of wind turbines on their farm land.”

Brown told the committee, “My district cannot afford to have anticipated revenue taken away from them.”

Unless the provision is restored and the wind energy production tax revenues guaranteed the Grand Meadow school district, Brown said he will have to terminate a full-time teaching position.