BROOKINGS (10-26-26) — Brookings Radio continues election 2026 candidate profiles. This week, we’re looking at the District 7 State House candidates.
Roger DeGroot is a retired school superintendent and an incumbent District 7 representative. He says state lawmakers need to prioritize education earlier in the budget process… “We can make education a priority and deal with it number one, instead of the last thing before we leave in the session. And if you watch — not just since I’ve been there — but if you watch it, it’s been that way forever. Instead of number one prioritize those, appropriators work everything else through — of course they need to, because some of those are locked in — and then it comes down to education.”
He’d like state aid to schools to be averaged on a two-year rather than an annual basis, to help cushion the financial blow to schools coping with declining enrollment… “I’m going to do a two-year averaging that will, I don’t know if we’ll get it through or not, but we have the bill written. What it’ll do is take just two years, and that’ll soften the blow by fifty percent at least. Then if you go down again the next year, you can average those two years. But those are some things we need to do to take care of those folks, especially with declining enrollment.”
When it comes to statewide economic development, he’d like to support small start-ups… “We need to funnel more money into start-up businesses. More dollars available. And I’ll give you an example of that — the Research Park out here. And we live in kind of a utopia here because we have the Research Park, we have SDSU, we have he community. Anyway, economic development is wages, it’s housing, it’s childcare.”
The complete interview with Roger DeGroot is posted at https://www.brookingsradio.com/news/interview-district-7-state-house-candidate-roger-degroot/. Two of the three candidates running for District 7 house will be elected. Election day is November 3.
— Brookings Radio News
