North Dakotans may see some property tax relief from a commission's proposal to overhaul the state's education finance system, although that is not the plan's initial focus, Lt. Gov. Jack Dalrymple said.

In a briefing Tuesday for the Legislature's interim Education Committee, Dalrymple said Gov. John Hoeven's plan to ask the 2007 Legislature for a $60 million increase in state education spending will be the first step in a six-year process.

About half of the increase will be set aside for schools that have less than the state average of taxable property to support each student. The current per-student average is $16,185. School districts with less will get state payments to bring them up to the average.

Those "equity" payments will relieve some pressure on property tax rates in school districts that get added state money, Dalrymple said. However, they will not benefit districts with higher-than-average property values per student.

"When you put $60 million into K-12 funding, and when you target it especially to the districts that have had the most burden in raising funds … we are going to be providing property tax relief as part of this effort," he said.

Hoeven's recommendation will include a general increase in state aid to schools, but it will be smaller because of the equity commitment, the lieutenant governor said.

In future sessions of the Legislature, more state aid will be devoted to ensuring that districts have the resources needed to provide an adequate education for students, Dalrymple believes.

During a six-year period, beginning with the 2007 Legislature, he expects state aid to education to increase more than $200 million, the lieutenant governor said.

"The first step in this process is clearly heavily weighted toward the equity question, and we have had many, many superintendents ask us, 'What's the rest of the story? We aren't going to get an equity payment,'" Dalrymple said. "The answer we're giving is, 'It is a multistep process. It is going to take more than one session.'"

Dalrymple is chairman of the Commission on Education Improvement, which Hoeven appointed in January as part of an agreement to stall a lawsuit filed by a group of school districts against North Dakota's school finance system.

The commission intends to review a draft of its initial recommendations at a meeting in Devils Lake next month. Hoeven is expected to incorporate them in his budget message to the Legislature in December.

The Legislature's interim Education Committee is also exploring changes in the school finance system, while its interim Finance and Taxation Committee has been drafting legislation that would provide increased state school aid in exchange for property tax cuts.

The tax panel has explored proposals to raise state income and sales taxes, and to eliminate exemptions to North Dakota's sales tax, as methods for raising more state revenues to finance local property tax reductions.

However, Rep. C.B. "Buck" Haas, R-Taylor, said the committee is unlikely to support tax increases.

Instead, it will plug specified aid amounts into its legislation, in hopes that the Legislature will finance them within the state's existing budget, Haas said. The first two-year installment is expected to be $74 million, enough to chop the maximum state property tax rate by about 9 percent.

"It's a dollar-for-dollar reduction in property taxes, no questions asked," Haas said.