School Funding Era Ends?

State Senator Molly Kelly is pleased.

She says with all the pieces of the new education funding formula finally in place New Hampshire has put to rest years of litigation.

TAPE: what we can talk about today- today- we can talk about education. And we can talk about the fact that we were able to work together to move forward and to create a constitutional funding formula.

Kelly says part of the reason she believes the state’s most recent formula is on firm legal ground comes from a 2008 ruling from the state Supreme Court.

In the so-called Londonderry case- where several school districts challenged a pervious school funding plan- the court’s majority determined lawmaker’s efforts were headed in the right direction.

The Senator says that’s because over the past several years, lawmakers meticulously followed the court’s instructions.
:42 We’ve certainly defined an adequate education and we have determined its cost. And have a constitutional funding formula, and this last piece...to meet the final mandate of setting up an accountability system.

Meeting all four requirements is something that’s never happened as the funding formula debate has smoldered.

Despite that and lawmaker’s assurances, a handful of influential attorneys doubt the formula fully funds an adequate education.

TAPE: the average cost per pupil in the state right now is $11,000 or $12,000.

Attorney Scott Johnson co-counsel for the Claremont Coalition says if he compares that number to the state’s basic grant per student- $3450- it’s clear to him the state’s plan is woefully inadequate.

TAPE: in other words, if you were to figure out with $3450 dollars paid for in a local school district, you wouldn’t have very much. And are you saying all the rest is not part of an adequate education? Can they only have a third of the teachers, a third of the transportation, a third of the materials?...is that all you need? If that’s so, why are the other two-thirds there?

Lawmaker’s own construction of the new plan could lend weight to Johnson’s argument.

The formula sends money to schools on top of the adequacy grant.

Johnson and others want to know, if $3450 is indeed considered adequate, what’s the need to send any more?
But former state Senator Iris Estabrook- a key architect of the current plan- says the $3450 dollar grant stands on its own.

TAPE: we built each element of the universal cost is to do a real comparison of costs around our state and around the country and make sure we included in those universal costs all the relevant elements. And there’s quite a bit of documentation to build that $3450 figure.

Observers seem to agree no community is primed to take the state to court right now.

Part of that is because it’s an expensive endeavor to undertake.

Another reason is, thanks to federal stimulus money, the state can fully finance education over the next two years.

And that money probably will buy the state a grace period from would-be litigants.

TAPE: I am not aware of any district that is currently contemplating a lawsuit.

Mark Joyce heads up the New Hampshire School Administrators Association.

However, given the state’s bleak financial outlook, Joyce and others want to see what happens when the state must pay for the package without help from Washington.

TAPE: however I do know that resources have been retained to challenge any step backward from this constitutional step forward.

Joyce and others know earlier this year lawmakers introduced legislation that would have stripped $127 million dollars out of the formula.

The measure was rejected, but that doesn’t mean lawmakers- desperate to find savings- wouldn’t consider tinkering.

And that’s why Attorney Andy Volinsky, who also represents the Claremont Coalition says he hopes lawmakers are taking the necessary steps to ensure the integrity of the plan.

TAPE: you can’t wait till the end of the two year cycle to determine where the next funding is coming from. You need to be thinking now. And so part of our analysis is what the Legislature and the Governor is doing to secure reliable funding.

Clearly, whether it’s the amount of money the state sends to schools, or whether the state can afford the plan, school advocates have their doubts.

That said, attorney Jim Allmendinger of the teacher’s union NEA New Hampshire, says this new formula represents a new day in the debate over education funding.

TAPE: to borrow from Churchill, I don’t think this is the beginning of the end. But I think it’s the end of the beginning. The state has accepted the fact of its duty to constitutionally fund an adequate education. Now the debate is going to shift to what is an adequate education and what is the best way to fund it.

Allmendinger adds he’s confident be it in one year, three years or five, this issue will be back in court.