'Nobody is going to walk away happy'

School-funding effort may lead to more legal action

Gov. Brian Schweitzer says his school funding plan will satisfy the Montana Supreme Court, but the educators who sued for constitutionally adequate funding say it's a plan that will put the state back in court.

The Democratic governor's plan to provide $64.6 million for schools is the centerpiece of a special legislative session that opens Wednesday and is expected to continue through the end of the week.

But some lawmakers and educators say it will not live up to court decisions directing the state to provide a "basic system of quality" education.

"If they suggest we've not complied with the court order, they can go ahead and test us," Schweitzer told the Bozeman Daily Chronicle last week. "Bring 'em."

That remark didn't sit well with Mike Nicosia, superintendent of the Columbia Falls school district, the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit that led to the court rulings.

"The education community doesn't think this is a remedy," Nicosia said. "If the governor believes this is a remedy then I'm sure we'll meet again."

Schweitzer also proposes to inject $125 million into state employee and teacher pension programs that are fiscally unsound. The state Constitution requires those programs to be "funded on an actuarially sound basis."

Nicosia said schools have been underfunded for 15 years, and they are once again taking a back seat to another crisis.

"I'm extremely disappointed, because once again, we're in the mode of seeing what's left, and we'll give that to education," he said. "And that's what we've been doing for 15 years."

The $87 million boost given to schools earlier this year and the $64.6 million proposed for the special session amount to a paltry increase that's only about 2 percent above an inflationary increase over two years, Nicosia said.

The Columbia Falls district has cut about $2 million from its budget over the last five or six years, Nicosia said, and as a result the district has not had a textbook or library-book line item in its budget in recent years.

The Legislature's Quality Schools Interim Committee worked for months on a comprehensive overhaul for school funding that was boiled down to a 187-page bill that was rejected by the education community.

A last-minute attempt to revise it was effectively crushed when Schweitzer announced his plan last week.

Nicosia says the committee's plan was flawed from the beginning, because it built a formula off the 2004 fiscal year - "basically the year the court says we were totally inadequately funded. Many of us didn't have textbook line items in 2004. To build off that year using some kind of inflation factor is ludicrous."

The Montana Quality Education Coalition, the plaintiff organization that Nicosia belongs to, has proposed a funding fix that's been estimated to cost $300 million.

But Schweitzer has flatly rejected such proposals, saying they amount to "blank check" spending for school administrators. The governor has insisted that the state must "live within its means" and he rejects spending that requires tax increases.

Republican lawmakers are developing an alternative school funding plan to propose during the special session, but they acknowledge it has little chance of advancing through a Democratic majority and a Democratic governor.

Senate Minority Leader Bob Keenan, R-Bigfork, says the GOP is willing to offer up a plan that puts an end to the lawsuit, because Democrats have completely failed to do so.

"The Democrats campaigned on putting this issue behind us. They went into the regular session saying they were going to put this behind us. Their interim committee spent months saying they were going to put this behind us in a special session," Keenan said. "Now we've had 18 months of false promises and false expectations. I just leave it up to the people of Montana. Is this what you expected? How long is this charade going to last?"

Keenan predicts that a drawn-out legal battle between the state and the Montana Quality Education Coalition will become the pivotal issue in next November's elections.

"We'll put a patch on this and campaign on this issue head-to-head with the Democrats next year," he said. The Republican plan that will be proposed in the special session will put an end to the litigation while providing a degree of reform and accountability in a new funding system, along with property tax reductions.

But Keenan said he believes the state always will be exposed to lawsuits and funding problems because the pension programs and "quality" education are written into the state Constitution.

"Our employment contracts are considered the end-word on benefits and retirement plans, so we can't change employer contributions or benefits," he said. "The only alternative we have is to raise taxes and maintain the contracts between the employers and the employees."

"And then with education, we have a plaintiffs attorney dream-come-true with 'basic system of quality' in the Constitution," he said. "What does that mean? Well, we're finding out what that means through lawsuits."

Sen. Dan Weinberg, D-Whitefish, also believes the governor's proposal will lead to continued litigation and he doesn't see any alternative solution being approved in the special session.

"I look at this on two levels - the ideal and what's possible," he said. "What I like to see happen is us giving the schools what they really need. They've been shortchanged for a dozen years and they need more than what the governor is suggesting, I think."

But Weinberg said dramatically boosting funding for schools and increasing the burden on taxpayers is not the solution.

"We don't need higher taxes, but we need different taxes," he said. "The state really needs comprehensive tax reform that includes a sales tax, with significant reductions in property taxes."

But that's the ideal resolution, he said, and it won't happen during the special session.

"We're going to get a very narrow discussion about how much to give to education," he said. "We'll hammer out some type of solution and nobody is going to walk away happy."

Lawmakers will focus on fixes that can be accomplished in a few days, he said.

Keenan said peripheral issues won't have a chance in the special session.

"Generally, what I've seen in special sessions is it has to be a pretty clear-cut issue for it to get tolerance from 76 people," he said, referring to a majority of lawmakers. "It has to be an issue that has universal appeal and it has to have a quick fix. Otherwise people just don't have patience for it."

Reporter Jim Mann may be reached at 758-4407 or by e-mail at jmann@dailyinterlake.com