The agency lowered the Duluth's issuer rating and several debt ratings from A3 to Baa2. Moody’s also reduced the rating on the district’s annual appropriation certificates of participation from Baa1 to Baa3. The district had about $184 million in outstanding debt as of October 2025.
Financial need alone will not carry two operating referendum questions across the finish line Nov. 3. The district must confront a trust issue that has accumulated over two decades and explain why voters should believe the next 10-year, $103 million plan be better than the plans that preceded it.
Duluth Public Schools is not asking voters to finance a cure-all. It is asking for enough stability to protect student learning while the district continues the harder work of controlling costs, correcting financial procedures and reshaping operations.
Duluth taxpayers are not prepared to approve another vague promise that new money will stabilize a system the district admits will remain financially unstable.
District officials said they attempted to keep reductions away from classrooms when possible, instead targeting administrative roles, support services and programs with declining enrollment.
Debt service already consumes about 60 percent of the school levy. With this addition of $38 million in bonding debt, Duluth is entering a decade in which the school system will spend more paying off debt than teaching future students.
Since 2008, Duluth Public Schools has paid more than $300 million toward Red Plan debt service, with $175 million remaining. By the time the bonds are gone, Duluth will have spent half a billion dollars servicing a plan that shrank the district, buried its budget, and doubled property taxes.
Duluth Schools' levy creep isn’t an accident. It’s a feature of the system, baked into Minnesota law, and the district has leaned on it harder than any of its neighbors. The taxpayers? They’re the audience at a rigged show, asked to clap politely while the board insists there’s no other way.
Multiple referendums have been floated in recent years asking voters for more funding — and taxpayers have responded with a clear and resounding no. Not because we don’t support kids. We do. But because we no longer trust the system to spend responsibly.
