New Budget Cuts Threaten Sch Fndg Settlemts-Stateline TOP STORY

8/8/2019 New Budget Cuts Threaten Sch Fndg Settlemts-Stateline TOP STORY

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Monday, December 06, 2010

New budget cuts

threaten school fundingsettlements

By David Harrison, Stateline Staff Writer

Last month, a group ofKansas school districtssued the state arguingthat lawmakers had

violated theirconstitutionalobligation toadequately fund publiceducation.

The lawsuit was neitherunexpected norunfamiliar. Kansasschools have beenarguing with

lawmakers for yearsover school appropriations, filing lawsuits that have frequently ended up inthe state Supreme Court. In 2006, the dispute appeared to have been laid torest when the court signed off on the legislatures decision to send anadditional $755 million to the schools. But state budget cuts last yearslashed $303 million in education spending. And so the districts are back inthe courts.

Kansas is far from alone in this respect. School funding suits also areworking their way through court systems in California, New Jersey andIndiana. More are likely to be filed in the months ahead, as legislatures confronted with yet another year of deep budget cuts opt to scale backeducation spending. School officials and attorneys in Texas and NewMexico already have talked about pursuing legal action. Education policyexperts say the coming legislative sessions could set off a whole new waveof school districts dragging lawmakers to the courthouse.

Some of them may say the only recourse they have is to challenge thefunding mechanism, says Robert Toutkoushian, a professor of higher


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education at the University of Georgia.

Over the past two years, schools got by on cash reserves, stimulus moneyand other forms of federal aid to prop up their budgets. But with reservesdrained and stimulus funds about to run dry, many education officials are

likely to find themselves struggling with drastic cuts in funding at a timewhen the economy remains sluggish.

Equal vs. Adequate

Since the 1970s, all but six states have seen funding lawsuits brought byschool districts and school advocates. The first wave of cases centered onthe question of whether funds were being equitably distributed, since highproperty-tax districts could afford to send more money to schools than lesswell-off areas. Those cases met with limited success.

Starting in the 1980s, school advocates shifted their strategy and beganrelying on requirements in most state constitutions that governmentsprovide adequate education for a states children. Those efforts picked upsteam after the No Child Left Behind Act and various state initiativesimposed benchmarks that school districts were required to meet. Advocatesargued that students could not meet standardized test targets withoutincreases in school funding. About two-thirds of those cases weresuccessful, according to the National Access Network, which tracks schoolfinance lawsuits.

In most cases, courts ruled that lawmakers had to determine how much

money it would cost to provide an adequate education and then commit tospending that money. In New York, for instance, a long-running lawsuitended in 2007 when lawmakers agreed to allocate roughly $7 billion for thestates schools, to be phased in over four years.

One result of these cases was to shift more responsibility for school fundingaway from local governments and onto the states. Instead of relying onlocal property taxes, schools now relied more heavily on state tax revenues.When the economy was strong, it wasnt hard for lawmakers to promisemore money without having to raise taxes. But the fiscal crisis of the pastcouple of years has forced state governments to cut back, to the dismay ofeducation advocates.

Constitutional rights dont get put on hold because theres a recession orfinancial constraints, says Michael Rebell, executive director of theCampaign for Education Equity and a leader in New Yorks school fundinglawsuit.

Texas legislators, responding to a state Supreme Court ruling, placed a


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awareness of the problems, says Molly A. Hunter, of the Education LawCenter in New Jersey.

That already appears to be the case in Nevada, one of only six states thathave never had a school funding lawsuit. So far, nobody in Nevada has

threatened to sue, but state Sen. Mo Denis is worried nonetheless. A 2006reportcommissioned by the legislature found that the state would need toincrease education spending by at least $2.3 billion annually to provide anadequate education. That would be an unimaginable expense in a legislativesession during which lawmakers will have to fill a $3.2 billion overallbudget gap. Education makes up about 65 percent of the state budget, whichmeans it will almost certainly face some cuts, according to Denis.

Somebody could sue, he says. The concern is then our ability to governgets turned over to the courts, which isnt a good way to run your educationsystem.

-- Contact David Harrison [email protected]

See related stories:

Education's less-than-certain windfall(09/03/2010)Congress weighs stimulus for schools(04/20/2010)States racing for education money(01/13/2010).
http://www.schoolfunding.info/states/nv/NV-coststudy.pdfhttp://www.schoolfunding.info/states/nv/NV-coststudy.pdfhttp://www.stateline.org/live/details/story?contentId=510579http://www.stateline.org/live/details/story?contentId=510579http://www.stateline.org/live/details/story?contentId=478628http://www.stateline.org/live/details/story?contentId=478628http://www.stateline.org/live/details/story?contentId=451264http://www.stateline.org/live/details/story?contentId=451264http://www.stateline.org/live/details/story?contentId=451264http://www.stateline.org/live/details/story?contentId=478628http://www.stateline.org/live/details/story?contentId=510579http://www.schoolfunding.info/states/nv/NV-coststudy.pdf

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New Budget Cuts Threaten Sch Fndg Settlemts-Stateline TOP STORY