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Education committees endorse adequacy study Tuesday, Jan 23, 2007 By Rob Moritz Arkansas News Bureau LITTLE ROCK - An educational adequacy study endorsed Monday recommends about $191 million in additional funding for Arkansas public schools over two years. The report recommends an $85 million increase for 2007-2008 and in additional $106 million for 2008-2009. "That's the bottom line," Sen. Jim Argue, D-Little Rock, said after the House and Senate Education committees endorsed the study required under Act 57, approved in 2004 during a special session on education. The recommendations include $46 million in both years of the biennium to fully fund voluntary pre-school programs and $10 million for school districts facing declining enrollment. The report also recommends increasing per-student funding for school districts by .5 percent, or $12 million, in 2007-2008 and 1.5 percent, or $32 million, in 2008-2009. It recommends a 2 percent pay raise for teachers. "I think this report is our best effort, given the resources and information that we've had," Argue said. "Our next big issue is not how much money we fund public education with, but how we're spending the dollars we've allocated to public education. It's a politically loaded issue that will be hard for the Legislature to deal with." Not included in the adequacy study was how much it will cost the state to pay for improving school buildings and equipment across the state. The cost has been estimated at more than $250 million, although Gov. Mike Beebe and legislative leaders say the price tag could approach $400 million. A commission reviewing school facilities across the state is expected to present that cost to legislators within the next few weeks. Beebe has said the money should come from a projected $843 million budget surplus. Transportation costs for school districts also were not included in Monday's study. Another panel is currently working on that issue and is expected to issue its report next month. "This study has targeted some key financial questions that this Legislature is going to have to answer. It's also at least a starting point on the big financial questions of how much money does the 86th General Assembly need to add to the system to maintain constitutional funding levels," said Argue, chairman of the Senate Education Committee. Rep. Mike Kenney, R-Siloam Springs, chairman of the House education panel, said he wanted to know how a $19 million increase Gov. Mike Beebe has proposed for minimum state aid to schools will be factored into school funding. In July, consultants working on the adequacy study recommended an 8.6 percent increase in per-student funding for schools. However, the joint committees in December recommended a .5 percent hike next year and a 1.5 percent hike in 2008-2009. Beebe has said the $19 million would be above what the committee has recommended. Legislative analyst Richard Wilson said after Monday's meeting that the adequacy study "is a funding model that suggests how the money should be spent." Act 57 requires the state to conduct a study on the adequacy of state school funding every two years, prior to each regular legislative session. The adequacy study released Monday is the second conducted by the state in four years. Lawrence Picus and Allan Odden, two university professors, conducted the first study in 2003 after the state Supreme Court first declared Arkansas' system for funding public education unconstitutionally inadequate and unfair in the Lake View school funding case. Using parts of that study, lawmakers in a 2004 special session developed sweeping academic and financial changes in public education, and raised taxes by nearly $400 million to pay for them. The Legislature also adopted during that special session a requirement to conduct an educational adequacy study before each future regular legislative session to ensure that school funds remains adequate. However, no adequacy study was conducted prior to the 2005 regular session, a factor the state Supreme Court emphasized in a December 2005 ruling that declared education funding inadequate for the 2005-06 school year. In an April special session, the Legislature increased public school funding by nearly $200 million for the 2005-06 and 2006-07 school years. Odden and Picus were rehired in 2005 to re-examine how the state spends money for economically disadvantaged public school students. The researchers presented their report to lawmakers in September, but the two education committees have met several times since then and reworked several areas of the report. |
