Governor says state will win school-funding lawsuit

Gov. Brian Schweitzer said this week he's confident the state will prevail in the latest "quality education" lawsuit.

"We've read their complaint … and it just doesn't have any merit," Schweitzer told the Inter Lake editorial board on Thursday.

The Montana Quality Education Coalition in December filed a lawsuit against the state, continuing themes from previous litigation that succeeded in District Court and Montana Supreme Court rulings. The state's school-funding system was found to be unconstitutional because it failed to determine the costs of providing a quality education and failed to establish a funding formula based on those costs.

The 2005 Legislature attempted to address the issues, and late that year, Schweitzer pronounced that the state had satisfied conditions required by the courts. Coalition members didn't agree at the time, and have since filed the second lawsuit.

Schweitzer said this week that his legal counsel has reviewed the case carefully and concluded the state has met all terms previously required by the courts. He expressed frustration over "too much taxpayer money" being spent "to hire lawyers on both sides."

And he questions whether additional money for K-12 education has been put to use in a way that improves educational quality.

"I would like to see how much money made it to the classrooms, how much went to technology, how much went to [teacher] recruitment and retention," he said.

Schweitzer said recent funding increases have made $23 million available for schools to conduct facilities studies to determine whether there are ways to curb constantly increasing energy costs. Only $8 million has been used so far, he said.

Schweitzer said he has asked schools to look for other ways to become more efficient at a time when enrollment is dropping at many schools. "They came back and said we're as efficient as we can be and a couple weeks later, they were filing a lawsuit," he said.

IN ADDITION to increased annual funding since 2005, the Legislature and Schweitzer provided an 8 percent funding increase for the 2007-08 school year. The coalition maintains that most of that funding is earmarked for one-time spending for things such as facility maintenance and establishing all-day kindergarten, and it is inadequate for ongoing funding needs for schools in the near future.

"The funding shortfalls facing school districts in (fiscal year 2009) are symptoms of the same underlying and ongoing problem that has existed since the current funding system was originally adopted in 1993," the most recent lawsuit states.

"Despite its constitutional and statutory obligations, the state has not yet determined the costs of providing the basic system of free quality public elementary and secondary schools … nor has it established a funding formula that is based on the definition of a basic system of free quality public elementary and secondary schools and reflects the costs associated with providing that system."

Schweitzer said he would bet money that the state will prevail in the current litigation.

"In our response, we have demonstrated that we have checked all the boxes" in complying with the previous court rulings, he said.

Schweitzer told coalition members in 2005 that they were "losing a public-relations battle" and he maintains the same position now.

"Now let's see how the money was spent," he said.

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