Special-session ifs grow
Posted on Saturday, December 31, 2005
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/adg/News/141121/
Gov. Mike Huckabee on Friday announced another condition he wants before he calls a special legislative session on education — the appointment of a panel of teachers to meet in secret to offer advice to himself and the Legislature.
And he said the expected state surplus of nearly $ 300 million could help meet school facilities needs. But he said it shouldn’t be shifted to the public school operational budgets. Instead, he would prefer that the money come from another source, such as shifting dollars from other state programs.
Huckabee, during a news conference at the Capitol, also continued to hold out the possibility that he may not call a special session to address education inadequacies cited by the state Supreme Court. He noted that some have suggested the state would be found in contempt if it misses the court’s Dec. 1, 2006, deadline.
“It’s also important that the Legislature is not in contempt of the taxpayers,” Huckabee said. “They would be in contempt of the taxpayers if they would continue to pour more money into a system that does not have levels of accountability, transparency and efficiency that taxpayers deserve.”
He also repeated other previously stated conditions he wants to see happen before he’ll call a special session.
One legislative veteran liked some of the things Huckabee is pushing but questioned whether he’s asking for too much.
“The biggest question I’ve got is how practical it is [for Huckabee to want to ] accomplish all these things before a [special session ] call,” Sen. Jim Luker, D-Wynne, said. “You’ve got to get everybody together to hash out these issues. I don’t see how you’re going to do this without being in session unless you allow only a handful of people to speak for everybody. I don’t want to do that. Everybody wants to have some input.”
On Dec. 15, for the second time in a little over two years, the state Supreme Court found that the state’s public school funding system continued to be unconstitutionally inadequate, largely because the state froze per-student funding for the 2005-06 school year at the previous year’s level. “Our public schools are operating under a constitutional infirmity that must be corrected immediately,” Justice Robert L. Brown wrote in the court’s latest opinion in the Lake View schoolfunding case.
TEACHER PANEL The panel of teachers Huckabee would appoint would consist of nine teachers who would be current or former state “teachers of the year” or Milken Award winners. He said the state has heard plenty from superintendents but teachers have had little input.
“I hope they will be involved as they’re willing to be,” Huckabee said of the teachers. “It gives us the ability to let these folks meet with us away from public focus. Many teachers will e-mail us and talk to us, but they don’t want to be out front and center because it will frankly be detrimental to their own jobs.”
He said he needed to hear from teachers to see whether they “didn’t get books for their kids this year but your district got, you know, a new gym.”
He said the panel’s meetings won’t be public because it would be a “working group” rather than a state board or commission.
Huckabee said this would probably receive the most criticism of his conditions.
“But these people won’t meet in total darkness and have a secret handshake,” he said, likening the need for secret meetings to grand juries and confidential meetings about the inner workings of a newspaper.
He emphasized that the panel’s report would be public. State Education Commissioner Ken James and Huckabee’s education policy specialist Terri Hardy would help produce the report.
The governor acknowledged that some people may question the report’s accuracy without the meetings being public. He said that if there is doubt, people can call the panel members, whose names will be public, to ask them whether the report is accurate.
During the news conference, Huckabee said he was unsure if the panel’s minutes or other documents associated with it would be disclosed.
“If we identified specific people with inflammatory recommendations, we probably wouldn’t make that public,” Huckabee said.
After the news conference, Huckabee spokesman Alice Stewart said the panel would fall under the governor’s “working papers” exemption to the state Freedom of Information Act. As such, they wouldn’t be public record.
She said it was undecided whether the panel would receive compensation.
David Matthews of Lowell, the lead attorney for school districts that petitioned the court over state funding earlier this year, said that if the panel received compensation, he doubted it could meet in secret.
“I think the advice [Huckabee’s ] given will have more credibility with the general public if their meetings are in public,” Matthews said.
Lee Vent, superintendent of the Forrest City district who has been one of the leading critics of the state public school funding system, said he had little problem with Huckabee’s conditions “with the exception of the private meetings. Certainly something as important as this, all the meetings need to be very transparent.”
But Senate President Pro Tempore Jim Argue, D-Little Rock, called the confidential nature of the panel “perfectly reasonable. It’s more likely they’ll be open and candid. I hope I have the chance to meet with them.” Dan Marzoni, president of the Arkansas Education Association, which has been at odds with the governor through the years, said he’s glad Huckabee wants input from teachers but all Huckabee has to do is “call across the street and talk to us.”
OTHER DEMANDS Huckabee’s other five conditions before calling a special session are : The completion of the adequacy study by consultants Larry Picus of the University of Southern California and Allan Odden of the University of Wisconsin. That report is due in September 2006 and will address funding needs for the 2007-08 and 2008-09 school years. Matthews said that if Huckabee wants the consultants to address the 2005-06 and 2006-07 school years, which the court’s ruling addresses, the state likely would have to amend the consultants’ contract. An update of the 2004 report on the condition of public school facilities. A freeze on new construction without approval of the state Board of Education.
A certified audit of the fund balances in the state’s 252 districts. An analysis by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette this fall showed that there is about $ 1. 1 billion in combined unspent dollars saved by the districts.
Huckabee said the Legislative Audit Division could do this or the state may have to contract with private accountants. An agreement that surplus funds could be used for facilities funding but that “it is ill-advised” to dedicate surplus dollars toward beefing up the education operating budget.
Where would the money come from ?
“The Legislature appropriates money, not the executive branch,” Huckabee said. “I don’t see a tax increase on the horizon at all. That’s not only unlikely but off the table.” He said he would cut from other agencies “if it had to be.”
Argue said he, too, wants to be cautious about spending surplus dollars for ongoing education needs.
He said legislators have asked the state Department of Finance and Administration to determine how much of the $ 275. 4 million unallocated surplus expected through the end of fiscal 2007 can legitimately be expected to continue as ongoing revenue and how much of it would be nonrecurring. Additionally, Huckabee said, his staff would begin drafting proposed legislation next week to be introduced if he calls a special session. That includes a state salary grid for administrators and coaches, having the state take over the payroll check-writing for the districts, and for possible additional school district consolidation. He declined to say whether any of his demands were dealbreakers. He said he was open to other ideas and changes.
SPECIAL SESSION ? House Speaker Bill Stovall, D-Quitman, has said he expects Huckabee will call a special session because he doubts the governor wants to leave office in a year with a constitutional cloud over the school system.
Huckabee declined to address that Friday.
“The greater risk is wasting a lot of money that needs to be spent on our schools and instead having a session and going back to court and still not having anything,” he said.
But he added that he was “confident” he could get together with the Legislature on solutions to the court decision.
“The governor of the state of Arkansas is the only person who can call a special session,” Matthews said. “He can set whatever criteria he wants to set. On the other hand, there is a Supreme Court opinion that says the present [funding ] system is unconstitutional and has to be fixed by Dec. 1, 2006.”