Plans to fund state schools get backing
Posted on Tuesday, March 21, 2006
Gov. Mike Huckabee said Monday that he supported a set of proposed changes in state education law that includes $ 309 million in increased school funding, and told state lawmakers to tentatively prepare for a special session starting on April 3, said Rep. Bill Stovall, D-Quitman, who met with the governor.
Stovall said the governor called the proposals "a reasonable response"to the state Supreme Court, which in December declared state funding for schools to be unconstitutionally inadequate. Huckabee called the proposals "a bridge"to the regular legislative session which is to begin in January.
Huckabee told the heads of the House and the Senate that he will call for a session in early April if the proposed changes and funding increases meet broad support beforehand among state lawmakers, said Stovall and Sen. Jim Argue, D-Little Rock, the Senate president pro tem.
"If the two chambers have consensus, April 3 is the target date,"Argue said. "We're working hard on that."
Whether that consensus exists will largely be determined at meetings scheduled for today, when the full House and the Senate will gather as committees to discuss the proposed legislation and the funding increases. Those who led the committees that crafted the proposals say that, if lawmakers like what they hear, the special session will go forward early next month.
But while legislative leaders expressed confidence that the proposals would meet broad support, others said they have questions and concerns. Some lawmakers worried that school funding increases will raise state budgets and lead to new taxes in the future. Others said the proposals did not address specific needs.
"It's very premature to start trying to dole out more taxpayer dollars,"said Rep. Jim Medley, R-Fort Smith, who called the increased funding "very excessive."
Lawmakers won't be voting on the proposals at their meetings today, and leading lawmakers said they will try to gauge the extent of support through conversations with individual lawmakers. Huckabee asked that supporters sign their name to the measures, but Argue said he won't be asking for that.
"The whole point is to make sure everybody knows what we are recommending and hopefully find out if they have any concerns and if we can get their support,"said Rep. Joyce Elliott, D-Little Rock, chairman of the House Education Committee.
Argue and Elliott said they'll also poll lawmakers throughout the week to size up support.
"I anticipate I'll be spending several days on the phone with members to see if there is consensus or not,"Argue said, adding that rallying support for the expensive and at times complex proposals will be "a tall order."
The proposals consists of 15 draft bills that were recommended by the education committees of the Senate and the House at meetings last week. They include bills to increase minimum teacher salaries, create new reporting for school districts, and loosen existing rules on when and how much school districts can go into debt.
The issue drawing the most attention among lawmakers is a recommended increase in perstudent foundation payments to schools. Under the proposal, those payments would increase from $ 5, 400 per student to $ 5, 490 for the current school year and from $ 5, 490 to $ 5, 627 for 2006-2007.
That will cost the state $ 40. 5 million for 2005-2006 and $ 59. 3 million for 2006-2007.
Other major appropriations include $ 19. 1 million each year to pay for increased teacher retirement benefits and $ 130 million for the 2005-2006 year to pay for improvements in school facilities.
The committee has also recommended appropriating $ 40 million over the two years to pay for unforeseen "extraordinary"improvements in school facilities.
Argue and others have said the state will draw on an existing surplus of state revenue to pay those costs. The surplus includes $ 123. 8 million left over from the 2004-2005 fiscal year and $ 140 million in estimated unallocated general revenue for the current fiscal year.
Lawmakers said Monday they may also draw on surplus revenue earmarked specifically to pay for schools. Stovall said he has asked the Department of Finance and Administration to determine if any excess cash exists in those funds that could be used in a special session on education.
One of those funds, the Educational Adequacy Trust Fund, is expected to end the fiscal year on June 30 with $ 83. 6 million in unallocated cash, said Richard Weiss, the director of the Department of Finance and Administration. That money is distinct from the unallocated general revenue available to lawmakers. A sales tax increase that goes to the adequacy trust fund is classified as special revenue rather than general revenue.
State Budget Director Mike Stormes also said that the Department of Education may also have excess cash leftover at the end of the fiscal year that could be available for lawmakers to reallocate.
Despite the abundance of tax dollars, some lawmakers said they are still concerned with how the state plans to pay for the increased funding. They worry that the committees' recommendations will lead to increased school costs in the future, when surpluses aren't assured.
"Somewhere down the line, if we have a lean year, someone's going to have to raise taxes,"said Rep. Johnnie Bolin, D-Crossett, who said the "number one fear"among his colleagues was the need to raise taxes.
Sen. Steve Faris, D-Central, said he wouldn't support spending additional money on schools until the Legislature determines that the funding is needed to provide an adequate education. Under a law passed in 2004, the state must measure the cost of providing an adequate education in the months before each regular legislative session, a chore the Legislature failed to do before the 2005 session.
That failure played a major role in the court's Dec. 15 decision to declare funding inadequate for the 450, 000-pupil system, which currently spends about $ 3 billion a year in state and local funds. Argue has said increases in the foundation aid, for example, are based on changes in the Consumer Price Index, which measures changes in the cost of living.
"I'm not for putting any more money into facilities until we decide what adequacy is,"Faris said. "The court has made it clear we need to come up with some definition of adequacy. And until that is done, I'm not for putting any money into facilities whatsoever."
Others said the committees'proposals don't go far enough. Sen. Steve Bryles, D-Blytheville, said Monday that he'll be introducing legislation meant to help small or shrinking schools get by. They include basing foundation funding not on the average daily enrollment of the previous year, but on an average of that enrollment over the previous three years. Bryles said that will give shrinking districts, which lose foundation money because of losses in enrollment, more time to react to the dwindling revenue.
He said he also wanted to fund the state's smallest school districts as if they had 500 students. Currently, the state requires district to have at least 350 students or be consolidated. Bryles said the state's funding formula is based on having at least 500 students, and that schools with fewer than 500 students aren't getting enough state support.
That proposal would have the state paying $ 7 million annually for the cost of paying foundation aid on 1, 700 students that do not exist, Bryles said.
"This is a time when we're putting new money in the system,"Bryles said. "It's going to be very difficult, come the regular session, to do it, and so let's go ahead and make the push now."
Rep. Denny Sumpter, D-West Memphis, said he would introduce legislation to target state money toward a program to improve literacy.
"If we're not doing some things that have some expectations to them, if we're just saying 'Here's $ 40 million, roll it into the per-student formula,' I'm not going to be for that,"Sumpter said. "I think that we should address that or address nothing."
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