FAIRMONT — The Cress Refrigeration tax abatement request cleared its final hurdle on Tuesday as it was approved by the Fairmont School Board at its meeting.

Previously, the abatement needed to pass the Fairmont City Council and the Martin County Board of Commissioners. Prior to this meeting, both had agreed to the tax abatement, which will allow Cress to build a new 6,400 square foot commercial building costing $1,074,975 on Bixby Road by the Martin County Fairgrounds. The abatement will last for five years.

The issue had been brought up at last month’s meeting, and a public hearing was scheduled for Tuesday’s meeting. No one came to speak at the public hearing, and no further discussion was had regarding the abatement, as most of the clarification necessary came at last month’s meeting.

Unanimously, the school board voted to approve the tax abatement, which is the final vote the tax abatement needed overall.

In other business, Superintendent Andy Traetow shared information regarding a potential state constitution amendment that would benefit schools across Minnesota regarding the MN Permanent School Fund.

“The Permanent School Fund is a fund that was established under Minnesota’s constitution when the state was founded all the way back in 1858,” he said. “It was created using lands granted to Minnesota specifically to support public education. Today, revenues generated from school trust lands, including timber, mining, leases, other natural resources, are invested through the state board of investment, creating this permanent source for Minnesota public schools.”

Today, the revenue generated for the fund has made it to $2.3 billion. Traetow said the constitutional amendment restricts how much of this fund’s growth can be distributed to schools.

“Recently, a bipartisan legislative task force in the Minnesota Legislature approved a constitutional amendment that would allow annual distributions to schools based on four and a half percent of the fund’s three-year rolling market average,” Traetow said. “It would be similar to university endowments and other long-term trusts, where it would increase some annual distributions and provide some more predictable funding.”

Now, it goes up to a vote in November. Traetow said the school district will be sending information out to people within the school district on this constitutional change.

“We want to make sure as a school board we provide accurate information so our constituents can be as informed as possible when they receive that,” he said. “We have things for communication from the school district as well. We can use our communication systems to provide that information too.”

In other news:

—  Traetow announced that Community Education and Recreation (CER) will officially be moving from its current location at the Southern Minnesota Educational Campus  (SMEC) building to the elementary school, where the Open Door Clinic used to be, between Aug. 3 and 6. He said this is right in time for back-to-school registration on Aug. 10.

— The resignation of paraprofessional Kathryn Lawrence was approved, effective July 7.