Governor, head of school group meet on policy
Posted on Thursday, January 5, 2006
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/adg/News/141624/
Gov. Mike Huckabee met with the head of the school district superintendents lobby Wednesday, partly to emphasize that his proposals weren’t meant to be vindictive against school administrators.
Tom Kimbrell, executive director of the Arkansas Association of Educational Administrators, described the meeting as positive and appreciated Huckabee being interested in his views.
He said he believes the main goal of Huckabee’s proposals that irritated administrators — state salary schedules for superintendents and coaches, a state-run payroll system for local schools, and possible additional district consolidation — is to get people talking about ways to improve education in Arkansas.
“I don’t think he’s trying to create an atmosphere where superintendents are bad people,” Kimbrell said. “He’s trying to get superintendents to come to the table with alternatives.”
Kimbrell said he came away from the 30-minute meeting, which Huckabee initiated, believing that the governor was open to negotiation and willing to back off on the statewide superintendent salary schedule.
Kimbrell said he doesn’t think Huckabee is bitter against all superintendents but that there is probably some vindictiveness from the governor toward the superintendents from the 49 districts that successfully sued the state over school funding. He said he expects that helped shape Huckabee’s proposals.
Huckabee announced at a news conference Friday conditions he wants met before he’ll call a special session. He also emphasized then that his proposals weren’t vindictive.
During his monthly radio call-in show Wednesday, the governor briefly mentioned the possibility of calling a special session to solve education deficiencies cited by the state Supreme Court in a Dec. 15 opinion.
“We had a very good productive meeting yesterday with legislative leadership, scoping out what the landscape might look like for a special session,” Huckabee told his radio audience. “Before there can be a definite time set for a special session there has to be definite goals put forth. I’m confident the legislative committees are going to be working diligently. There’s going to be excellent cooperation between the legislative and executive branches.”
On Tuesday, Huckabee met with Senate President Pro Tempore Jim Argue, D-Little Rock ; House Speaker Bill Stovall, DQuitman ; and Sen. Shane Broadway, D-Bryant.
“We left everything openended,” Stovall said.
Stovall said he warned Huckabee that a contentious special session could result if Huckabee continued to push for further consolidation and a superintendent salary schedule.
Stovall said legislators agreed to “get to work” on figuring out how school funding should be adjusted for inflation.
A key criticism from the Supreme Court was that the state didn’t raise funding this school year from last year’s $ 5, 400 per pupil while providing inflationary increases for other agencies.
The state-hired consultants seeking to determine adequate funding levels for fiscal 2008 and 2009 aren’t determining levels for fiscal 2006 and 2007.
So, Argue said the Legislature likely will enlist economists to determine the impact inflation has had on school districts. He said there will likely be legislative meetings on this and other education topics through March, meaning a special session wouldn’t be soon.
The Supreme Court set a Dec. 1, 2006, deadline to reach compliance with its decision.
“We’re just not to the details yet,” Argue said.
Kimbrell said Huckabee’s education commissioner, Ken James, suggested an alternative to the salary schedule for superintendents. James’ option called for limiting spending for administrative salaries to a certain percentage of district budgets. Kimbrell said that option is more appealing to his group.
Regarding a state payroll delivery system, Kimbrell said it would be a difficult goal to achieve but acknowledged it would yield more thorough finance data. He said Huckabee told him he hadn’t thought it through yet and that it was only an idea.
Kimbrell said that despite his meeting with the governor he expects that many of his group’s members “feel there is a vindictive nature” to Huckabee’s proposals, and they can’t understand why “the finger had been pointed at administrators” when the Supreme Court faulted the state for inadequate funding.
Huckabee has said that if superintendents want more money, they must expect more accountability measures from the state.
Also Wednesday, Huckabee met for about 10 minutes with Arkansas Education Association President Dan Marzoni and Executive Director Rich Nagel. The meeting was at the union’s request.
“We were asking that he name a few AEA members to his group and that was all,” Marzoni said. “We didn’t get any commitments.”
Marzoni was referring to a task force Huckabee said Friday that he would assemble. It is to consist of nine award-winning teachers. He said the task force would meet in secret to advise him and the Legislature on school matters.
Stovall said he didn’t object to the meetings of the teachers group being closed.
“The governor can meet with whomever he chooses to meet with,” he said.
Huckabee said he hoped to choose the panel’s members by Friday. Information for this article was contributed by Hilary Hilliard of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.