Judge gets school funding right. Inter Lake editorial

Gov. Brian Schweitzer and the Montana Legislature may have dodged a big problem with a recent court ruling finding that the state has adequately addressed the main issues raised in a lawsuit over school funding.

And it's about time. Litigation led by the Montana Quality Education Coalition has dragged on since 2003, and it has been used as a legal hammer to compel the Legislature and the governor to provide increased funding for schools.

A ruling from District Judge Jeffrey Sherlock in 2004 found that the state's school funding system was unconstitutional, and that ruling was later upheld by the Supreme Court. Lawmakers and the governor addressed the issue in the 2005 and 2007 sessions, finally reaching a point where Schweitzer confidently declared that the matter had been resolved.

The schools disagreed, however, filing another lawsuit that was decided last week by another ruling from Sherlock that found the state did indeed make a "good-faith effort" that satisfied the concerns of the court.

"By and large, the court finds that the state has done a good job of addressing the problems' earlier raised by the court, Sherlock wrote in his decision. He noted that the state has boosted school funding by 25 percent since the Montana Constitution's requirement to provide a "quality education" has been defined by the Legislature.

And Sherlock seemed to correctly recognize the hazards of handing down a ruling that would effectively put the court in the position of setting the state budget in a year when state revenues are sharply limited.

The court, he said, "must be mindful of the separation of powers' between the judiciary and the executive and legislative branches of government.

While there was a so-called budget surplus of close to $1 billion in 2007, there isn't any more. Just this week, Schweitzer revised his proposed budget by cutting $140 million in spending to account for declining revenue projections as a national recession continues.

Next month, the Legislature will start work on developing a bare-bones budget and it will not have a court dictating what the spending priorities should be. Lawmakers will of course need to fund K-12 education as best they can, while recognizing other budget needs. But they don't need their hands tied before they start.